Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 2===

A click sounded in one corner of the darkening city.

It came from an old coin locker next to a capsule hotel. In such a rundown area, the lockers had no shortage of plausible rumors about babies or spirit tablets being found there.

“Okay.”

Hamazura pulled out a small paper bag of medicine.

He had gotten himself intentionally arrested to enter the Anti-Skill station, but he could not have them confiscate all of his possessions. He had especially wanted to keep Takitsubo’s medicine safe.

(But this is amazing. I just left it with Aneri’s drone and here it was inside a locker. With the locker locked and everything.)

“Enjoy karaoke with all your friends on Christmas!! Studio Enjoy Singing has a collection of more than 700,000 Christmas songs. And a full menu of food to enjoy too. Skip the chicken this 25th and feast on a real turkey! The full bird is cooked nice and long in the oven, so if you want food that tastes good and looks good on social media, head on down to Studio Enjoy Singing!!”

The LCD billboard on the capsule hotel’s roof would not shut up, but he could not glare up at it in protest. Even that carefree ad was equipped with a facial recognition camera to determine the favorability of the ad’s reception.

The city appeared peaceful even as the sun set.

Witness accounts of the “accidents” had to be out there, but most people only saw that as no more than a hint of excitement coloring their everyday lives. Yes, other people’s misfortune was only something to film with your phone and get likes on social media and views on video sites.

A strange buzzing came from his pocket.

He frowned and pulled out the phone to find the screen had lit up.

It was powered on despite him powering it off earlier.

“Aneri?”

Support AI Aneri had urged him to turn off his phone so Anti-Skill and Judgment could not track it, so he had done the same with the borrowed second one. But if Aneri had turned it on, had she come up with a way of preventing that?

She had probably used hacking, an anti-tracing program, or something else he did not understand.

“That’s good.”

Nothing major had happened, but it still felt significant. Seeing the light on that 6-inch screen felt just like seeing the lights in a mountain cabin window when lost on a snowy mountain at night.

Of course, he had no way of knowing the truth.

Aneri had decided the risk of being tracked was minimal because powerful dark side members had been attacking Anti-Skill stations and the network needed to search for him had been brought down by a brutal program or nanodevices.

“We’ll be fine now that Aneri’s here. Aneri, there’s so much I want you to look into! I’m counting on you, Aneri!!”

“You worry me, Hamazura.”

Takitsubo Rikou’s mouth formed a small triangle as she glared over at him.

Anyway, he had gotten a phone from that man who had worked as a voice on the phone, but he had not been able to get past the lock screen. He also did not know how to access any data or apps that were not openly displayed with square icons.

Aneri solved it all in three seconds.

The voice on the phone had possessed a counterfeit passport even more fancy than a normal one, so he must have found the address of a skilled counterfeiter who had created that passport for a fee.

It turned out that counterfeiter was known as Perfect Film.

Passports could have even more anti-counterfeiting methods woven in than paper money. It was generally best not to trust someone if they claimed they could counterfeit one, but if that voice on the phone had used this person, their quality was all but guaranteed.

You might think a passport was unnecessary for a domestic airline. That was true, but what was needed and what hurdles were set up could change on a case by case basis. It was actually easier to predict the hurdles with an international airline that always required a passport.

“Do we have enough money?” groaned Hamazura.

The voice on the phone’s small sling bag had included money crudely balled up and wrapped in rubber bands. Any activities that had to remain clandestine would require a fair amount of money. He did not know the going price for counterfeit passports, but this was a lot like flea market. Only suckers went ahead and paid the named price.

He looked down at the golden glitter in his hand. The shine had filled the entire outer edge of his Coin of Nicholas and the shadowy part was gone. The donut-shaped bar graph still had its full charge. That coin was apparently pure gold, but he felt using it for money was a bad idea.

(Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone what it is.)

It scared him.

It was creepy, but he was also reluctant to let it go at the moment.

He had more than just money troubles. You would normally contact a counterfeiter like this online first, but the situation was too pressing. Contacting them in advance might even cause them to flee, so rude as it was, it was best to head straight there and try to negotiate in person.

Once he had the email address, searching out the physical address was simple enough.

And Academy City was a large place, even if it was surrounded by walls. When they were being targeted by the city’s own system, slowly walking from one end to the other would be a bad idea. Plus, they did not know how long the Perfect Film counterfeiter would remain at their hideout.

They needed to act as soon as possible.

“The train will be arriving soon. Please keep your distance from the platform doors as you wait to board.”

“We’re taking the train, Hamazura?”

“Yeah.”

Takitsubo Rikou looked around at their surroundings, but Hamazura kept his eyes dead ahead as he quietly answered her.

“We could also steal a car, but anyone can see inside one of those ‘sealed rooms of glass’. That means crowded public transportation like a train or bus is best. If we act naturally, all the other people will hide us from view.”

“Acting normal now feels like the hardest thing, though.”

Once the train arrived, it spat people out and swallowed up the people waiting to board. Since it was the 25th, it felt busier than normal. Thankfully, there did not appear to be any delays due to the earlier snow. He felt a small hand grab at his jacket, so Takitsubo may have been afraid of them being separated by the crowd.

“Don’t push, please don’t push! We’re running on a special Christmas schedule, so there will be trains running after the usual last train. You don’t need to force your way onto this one, so please just wait for the next one!!”

Other passengers pushed on their backs as they boarded the train while a puppy-like station worker shouted from the platform. The station worker did not show any obvious interest in them. Even if the train system was half-public, the station workers were company employees, so they had no obligation to risk their lives to assist in the crackdown on crime. That may have been why their gears had not broken as badly as Anti-Skill’s.

“Gh.”

“Bear with it, Takitsubo.”

He had no idea if it helped, but he pulled his girlfriend close in the crowd.

“This is incredible,” she said while helplessly squished against him. “Is everyone here going to the same place?”

The thick automatic doors closed and the train began to move. With this crowd, Anti-Skill could not walk from one end to the other searching for people.

The train shook as it started to move, but that was when they heard an announcement from the opposite platform.

Train and station announcements were known for being dull and flat, but this was more than that. It sounded like the synthesized voice from music software where a text was given to the computer and the intonation was provided by altering the wave line.

“The next train is a commuter express headed to Katasu Station. Repeat: to Katasu Station. Please move behind the yellow line as you wait to board.”

“?”

Hadn’t this station been fully equipped with platform doors for a while now? Hamazura frowned at that strange announcement.

Just then, he heard a loud impact and then the glass of the nearby door was dyed red.

It happened just after the arrival of the train on the next track over. Screams erupted from the opposite platform along with the screech of steel on steel as the train rapidly applied its brakes, but this train continued to accelerate away from the station platform.

“Wait, did it hit someone?”

“I saw a severed head flying through the air. That’s what hit the glass like a ball.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo were surrounded by whispering voices while everyone was packed in too tightly for them to move.

The meaning of that crowd had suddenly changed.

“I saw who it was. It was Hikami, that loan shark on social media.”

“Eh, Ryougo-kun? The blond who’s always getting flamed for his videos? Like the one where he set a fan of cash on fire or the one where he sold some weird gold coin to a pawnshop?”

“Serves him right, but how’d he even fall onto the track? Aren’t there platform doors in the way???”

“Hamazura,” groaned a quiet voice. Someone else from the dark side appeared to have died, but it barely seemed to bother any of the other people here.

“What, some loan shark ended up like the Teke Teke?”

“There are worse ways to die. I fell asleep on the train after school one day and dreamed I was on a train full of gorillas.”

“You know how they never seem to finish those huge station expansions? I heard they’re having trouble with the rumored Platform 13. They dug too far and hit a spring, so they can’t stop the water and it’s been a swamp down there for years now. You can dump bodies or guns there and no one will ever find them, so there’s supposedly tons of people who sneak in there during the night.”

It did not matter what had actually happened. They had seen it happen for themselves, but it had quickly blended in with baseless rumors they had heard. It was no different than some thirty-second video they would watch to pass the time. Hamazura felt like they lived in an entirely different world despite standing right next to each other here. He felt a gaping hole in his heart growing even wider as he realized they would respond in the same way if he and Takitsubo died.

(I won’t let that happen.)

He clenched his teeth while holding his girlfriend even tighter in his arms.

(We haven’t lived lives we can share with just anyone, but we were doing everything we could to survive. I won’t let us be just one more passing curiosity for these people messing with their phones while munching on a snack in safety.)

The advertisement monitor at the top of the door was displaying a few headlines likely taken from some online news site.

They could have been showing a list of tomorrow’s victims, but instead the top story was about Mont Blancs passing shortcakes in sales. Almost like they were trying to give the impression that nothing of incident had happened on the 25th.

“We will soon arrive at the station.”

A flat male voice gave an announcement.

This one was not a strange synthetic voice talking about Yami Station or Katasu Station or whatever.

“The train may shake without warning, so please be careful. Next up is the end of the line: District 6 Amusement Park Main Gate Station. The station is likely crowded, so if you purchased your tickets in advance, we recommend getting them ready now.”