Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

Gray metal was piled high.

The windows at the same level as the top of the pile were at least on the third floor. The original dividers made from metal sheets designed for construction had broken away and the scraps spilled out onto the asphalt road. But instead of clearing away the obstacles, more and more dump trucks arrived to add to the pile.

These were the ruins of a former system.

Academy City’s trash was generally shipped out of the city using either District 23’s airport or District 11’s truck bases, but they needed a system in place to ensure their technology did not leak out that way. But how many people were wise enough to spend massive amounts of money on throwing out unusable trash? The issue had been put off indefinitely while the trash continued to pile up.

Which created another opportunity.

“Sensei.”

A girl spoke within the piles of trash that resembled rolling desert dunes.

She had long crimson hair and wore something like a racing swimsuit with the orange and black coloration of an insect. She had a smartphone on either shoulder and a rolled-up silicone keyboard and a bottle of discharge machine oil in the belts on her thighs. She walked barefoot across the piles of trash with pieces of metal both dull and sharp sticking out.

She was an android known as Ladybird.

She had a small wound on her forehead. It was only a few millimeters, but her body did not heal itself like a human one did.

“The pile will not collapse if we follow this route, but watch your step in the snow.”

“Good grief. Why should I have to risk my life just to reach my own hideout? And this cold weather is terrible for my old bones.”

“It is improving my cooling efficiency,” said the expressionless girl as she pulled the bottle from her thigh and drank from it.

Air resistance and blast resistance were secondary concerns for her clothing. Although for secondary concerns, they did a decent job in those fields. Their primary role was to help her radiate heat. Wearing something to cool off was very different from what humans looked for in clothing.

An old man who was as skinny as a matchstick slapped his own hips from behind.

“You need to learn how to be more friendly.”

“Friendly.”

Ladybird blinked and stars danced in her mechanical eyes, causing the old man to sigh.

“Display stars dancing in your eyes if you wish, but please do something about the drool dripping from your mouth.”

“Your complaint is illogical. If you did not want me to do that, you should not have made me capable of it. Nhhh.”

That extended groan was a weird thing for a machine, but she seemed to have something wrong with her ear. She tilted her head to the side, placed a hand on her ear, and then hopped up and down on one leg like a girl playing at the pool.

''A thick black liquid spilled from her ear.

“Ladybird-kun, maintenance can wait until we are back in the lab.”

“Understood.”

“Hm, that artificial ghost was more incompatible with you than I would have thought.”

The old man sounded somehow delighted even though this was damage to his side.

Ladybird looked into the distance to view some men in raincoats and gasmasks. This must not have been enough of a threat to warrant drawing the machete attached horizontally above her small butt.

“The trash collectors are here again.”

She did not mention whether they were beneficials or harmfuls.

''Because those categories were meaningless.

The name Kihara was enough. Those other categories invented by ignorant outsiders would not provide any more information.

The terminology seemed to have permeated the dark side of late, but just like with dangerous drugs and methods of fraud, the pursued would sometimes change what they called things to match the new terminology used by their pursuers.

“They won’t cause any harm as long as they find the fridge, washing machine, or whatever else they’re looking for in the trash. And if they did cause a major incident here, it would only bring greater scrutiny to this place. They will take care of this territory in order to protect their business.”

“…”

The android looked around with a troubled look. These piles of scraps were large enough to swallow up an entire person if one collapsed, so the place did not look very well cared for. Someone had even found a diamond-shaped yellow “!” road sign somewhere and stuck it diagonally into the trash to warn of some other kind of danger.

But there was value in this place. Even when there were gaps, most people would not want to shove themselves into them, so the piles of trash functioned as camouflage. Ladybird brushed off the hardened snow, grabbed a nearby handhold, and violently yanked something open.

There was a door there.

A door to a metal container. But with so much electronic trash piled up around it, no one would notice the rectangular box there. The stairs within led down to a labyrinthine secret base.

“Ladybird-kun, wipe your feet.”

“I doubt a doormat has much of a cleaning effect.”

She complained, but she still rubbed the bottom of her bare feet against a thick cloth.

Now.

Who would ever guess that someone had constructed a giant laboratory by stacking up several containers like a pyramid and then taking out the metal walls between them? Digging through the piles of trash and burying the containers had created a vast labyrinth. It was almost like an ant colony made of metal.

“Ladybird-kun.”

“Here.”

The girl lifted her perfectly straight bangs with a hand to show off the wound on her forehead, so the old man squeezed something from a tube and rubbed it on with a finger. Once the wound was covered, he attached a small piece of paper tape so it would not reopen.

Ladybird removed the entire sheath holding her machete and stuck the thick blade in a stand. She also set down the partially-empty bottle of discharge machine oil on a side table and lay face down on a maintenance examination table. She breathed in the rusty air from there.

She did not actually need to breathe or blink, but she still shut her eyes.

“It is calming in here.”

“Because all EM is cut off. With TV, radio, phones, microwaves, listening devices, remote-controlled toys, and all the other myriad EM signals flying through the city, it must be a stifling place for you.”

The old man explained that while sticking his hand down the back of her racing swimsuit.

There was a clasp at the center of the bands that intersected in an X-shape. One of his wrinkly fingers removed that, baring her slender back, but she did not even stir.

“Okay.”

He had removed his special engineering gloves upon entering the lab and he used his bare hands to attach a few wireless electrodes to her bright skin. Then the dried twigs of his hands moved past her sides and beneath the swimsuit-like material to reach for her stomach and flat chest. The Kihara man continued the maintenance like it was nothing, but he also sighed.

Even though he was a filthy harmful.

No, those labels applied by outsiders really were meaningless.

“I know I only have myself to blame,” said the Kihara. “But I really should have hired a woman to do this.”

“There is no need.”

Ladybird rapidly replied, almost like she was trying to reject that way of thinking.

“But the different parts I have to touch makes this incredibly awkward.”

“If those parts only cause problems, you should not have given them to me in the first place.”

This was not the first time they had had held this discussion.

“Treating a mechanical product like me as a human will only reduce my performance. I am an android built without a human base, so I would appreciate a maintenance worker who properly treats me as a machine. And I do not see a better candidate for that than you, my developer.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“We failed to a acquire a counterfeit passport, so the next step will likely be a lengthy one. Do a thorough maintenance and inspection job, Sensei.”

After pulling his hands from the girl’s swimsuit, the old man pulled the phone from the band on her right shoulder and performed a few operations on its small screen to transfer the work to the large LCD monitor in the room. He grabbed the tube in the belt on her thigh, unrolled the silicone keyboard, and began the inspection.

His work was precise and treated her as a machine throughout, but at the same time…

“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach.”

“Yes, and?”

“This is a lesson. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human. Whether you are natural or artificial, I say you still qualify as a ‘normal human’.”

Ladybird fell silent for a moment.

Eventually, she tilted her head while still lying face down on the examination table.

“Unknown error detected.”

“Is that so?”

“I do not want anyone but you to touch me.”

The old man wondered if he should be punished for rejecting that trust, even if it was the right thing to do.

“Expression of love.”

“Ladybird-kun, make your eyes sparkle if you wish, but please do something about the drool dripping from your mouth.”

The constructed girl was intricately designed, but she was too clever for her own good. Thanks to that, she lived in a very limited world.