Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter5 (section)

=== Part 4 ===
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Inside the 177th Judgment Branch, Uiharu Kazari continued working.

At first glance, she was a girl with no characteristics that stood out, but the large number of flower decorations on her head completely overturned that initial impression.

While using a computer, she spoke into the cell phone she had switched to speakerphone.

“I’ve done a cursory gathering of data, but it seems like tidy official information. It looks like it may be difficult to determine where they currently are.”

“You have images of all their faces though, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then go looking through the recorded footage from the security cameras and robots from around the hotel. If you go back, you should be able to find them. From there, just check through the footage from the different cameras along the way to follow their route to where they are now.”

“Should I really be doing that?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

Shirai’s permission sounded rather arbitrary, but Uiharu still typed into the keyboard as instructed. Of course, what she was doing could not be done just with the authority of a normal member of Judgment.

(Now I don’t know who the real criminals are.)

“Found them. They used a classic technique.”

“?”

“In order to avoid being followed on the camera footage, they changed clothes or put on wigs at a few blind spots along the way. They were trying to prevent anyone from tracing them by altering their looks bit by bit.”

Normally, that method was used in a crowd to escape flesh-and-blood pursuers. With recorded footage that could be examined carefully again and again, someone who was constantly changing their clothes actually stood out from everyone else. It was basically announcing that they were up to no good.

“This isn’t even enough to fool facial recognition software,” Uiharu commented.

“You won’t be led astray by that, right?”

“They travelled using busses, the subway, taxis, and as many forms of transportation as they could manage. They split up to take multiple routes and occasionally double back or make large circles around the same place. Most likely, they are trying to throw off pursuers or are checking to see if they have any.”

Uiharu connected together the recorded camera footage, calculated out the path they had taken, and drew lines on a digital map.

“I’ve found it. I’ve found it. All the members that split up met back together at a single point.”

“Where?”

“An apartment complex for teachers in District 8. But almost no one is actually staying there. They are being rented by the wealthy as essentially ‘large closets’.”

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