Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 9===

Shortly before noon, Takitsubo came through on her promise in a Japanese-style pasta restaurant that used chopsticks. With her usual lack of expression.

“I found him. In District 23.”

That was a special district dedicated to aerospace development. It contained things like an international airport, a rocket launch site, and an underground silo mass driver, so it had plenty of large warehouses and maintenance hangars that ordinary people never got near. Buy one of those and it could easily become a dangerous scientist’s secret base.

“In the end, how did you figure that out with only that thin file?”

“Do you want to know?”

In the next seat over, Kinuhata forcefully covered Frenda’s mouth.

That question was guaranteed to lead to a lengthy digression in explanation land. And the extensive explanation from the expressionless yet somehow smug-looking girl might be something that only Takitsubo could understand thanks to her ability to receive all sorts of unseen information. No one else would understand a bit of it.

“The mysterious DIY Garage took some jobs with the dark side in the past, which is why he is fairly well known. By investigating the secret payment methods he used with those people, you can gradually work out what he’s trying to avoid. As long as you provide a clear plan in advance, the support group does good work.”

Takitsubo looked like she had even more to say, but Kinuhata didn’t engage. This wasn’t the sales talk of a clothing store salesman, so she wasn’t letting this go on for long.

As long as they got the information they wanted, it didn’t matter if it came from the day’s horoscope or big data analysis. After picking up on the right search terms from the file, Takitsubo Rikou arrived at the following conclusion.

“He seems to be renting an airport maintenance hangar meant for a private plane. Anyone who can prepare the appropriate paperwork under a fake name can get their own private space the size of a school building. And no one will grow suspicious hearing mechanical sounds from inside. It’s perfect for a lab.”

“Then that’s the place.”

At times like this, Mugino didn’t question Takitsubo’s “oracles”. She knew from past experience that the more she said relating to these answers, the more she would regret it.

And more than that, Mugino was mildly curious about how talkative Takitsubo was being. A lot of people had died from unwittingly using counterfeit gold bars. Did she see that as a form of false charges?

(Why is she getting so worked up when those were all dark side villains who died?)

Frenda was the only one who hadn’t ordered pasta. She had to share a bento with her sister at lunchtime, so they waited until the afternoon events to begin.

Afterwards, the four of them got to work.

“So do we super know this DIY Garage person’s real name?”

“Uikawa Kyusaku. Age: 45. Sex: Male. Divorced. Officially works as at a mobile device repair shop that only accepts jobs online. The official paperwork says he lives in District 8, but that’s probably a decoy. A young woman periodically enters the house because he has hired her part-time to clean up the place and keep it from falling into disrepair. Uikawa himself shows no sign of living there, so he may sleep in his secret lab.”

“In the end, you really did figure out everything, huh?”

“Because the support team is so good. Make sure you take good care of them.”

Frenda made her exasperated comment as she burned a vertical line through the tall fence and entered District 23.

Below the blue sky, they cut across the taxiway next to a runway and walked past a circular metal panel that looked like an enormous hatch. It resembled a missile silo except bigger. It was probably an underground silo mass driver.

They approached one of the giant boxy buildings that each could have contained a gym.

Without any advance information, they couldn’t have told it apart from the rest.

“Any traps?” asked Mugino, annoyed.

“In the end, I’ve already deactivated the alarm and explosives.”

Frenda didn’t hesitate to respond as she messed with the contents of a rectangular panel in the asphalt.

The front door was so massive that sliding it open would be like moving an entire wall measuring a few dozen meters, but they ignored that and used the smaller side door.

They were prepared to respond instantly if anyone was inside, but to their surprise the place was deserted. The lights were still on even though it was daytime. Was it like that year round since the hangar had no windows?

“Did he super run away?”

“With his lab intact? A lot of the machines here cost a hundred million yen each. And if someone who sets explosives traps really intended to run, they would blow away their lab first because it would be a treasure trove of information no matter how thoroughly they cleaned it. In the end, he would try anything that an outsider could think up on the spot.”

Takitsubo pointed to one corner of the large facility.

“Is that for late-night snacks? A toaster, a gas stove, and a steam oven. He has all that, but the card storage and stamp-sized flash memory haven’t been fried. There’s no sign of it being shredded in the blender either. It doesn’t even look like he dumped water on the big computers. I don’t think he’s destroyed anything yet.”

That would mean he just so happened to be out.

…Just so happened. That was another factor that couldn’t be calculated for. Mugino silently scowled, hoping this wouldn’t lead anywhere unpleasant.

“The place is a mess.”

“The air conditioning isn’t anything special… Since this isn’t a biolab, there shouldn’t be any danger from bacteria or microbes, but in the end you should still watch out for chemicals.”

“Is that something being cautious can help with?”

Since gold was counterfeited here, Mugino had been imagining something like a blast furnace, but there was in fact a wide variety of equipment. There was something like a microwave oven larger than a bathtub, there was a press and a lathe like you would find in a downtown workshop, there was a high-tech industrial 3D printer, and there was even a sewing machine and a jeweler’s work desk. Overall, the place felt jumbled. Mugino opened a giant silver refrigerator to find rows of flasks containing colorful chemicals. She wanted to avoid touching those.

Takitsubo tilted her head.

“Looks like he counterfeits more than just gold.”

“Did you know Michelangelo started off as an art forger? If he hadn’t had a change of heart, he probably would have stayed that way.”

This was a topic that came up a lot in labs, both on the dark side and not. And it was a tantalizing story for the adults who wanted to shape born geniuses how they liked.

(So it isn’t just gold… Then what kind of tech will he use as a weapon?)

Takitsubo appeared to be investigating a bookcase by the wall. She pulled out a thick file.

“September 1. Purchased 1 VSOP and 3 VSO?”

“Huh? Aren’t those brandy grades?”

“Hm? What do they mean? Do more letters super mean better?”

Kinuhata looked like she didn’t get it. At her height that wasn’t surprising. The bigger problem was probably that a student like Mugino was so unusually knowledgeable here.

“In the end, do you drink, Mugino?”

“No. But those premium drinks can be used in place of money. Which is great when you want to make a payment without anyone noticing. When I was little, my grandfather and the others made sure I memorized all the brands and grades. This was before I learned my times table, if you can believe it.”

That said, Item committed crimes as casually as visiting the train station or even making an online purchase, so they weren’t a group of well-behaved girls. Those extreme delinquents didn’t touch alcohol because their esper development already put a heavy burden on their brain growth and they couldn’t afford anything that would reduce or hinder their brain function. Because their lives might depend on it.

Anyway, a purchase record of fancy brandies was an odd thing to leave lying around in an airport maintenance hangar. If the thick file was entirely made up of those records, how much alcohol was this guy buying?

And…

“Here we go. …Is this the HoloAu79?” asked a disgusted Mugino.

A few golden bars were lying on the floor. They were about a size smaller than bricks. No matter how well made they were, their creator would know they were fake, so he wouldn’t treat them with much care. DIY Garage clearly wasn’t the type to grow attached to his creations.

Takitsubo’s voice dropped lower than usual.

“It was him trying to get rich with these that caused the Investment Club to be suspected and attacked.”

“It’s not like they were good people. Have you already forgotten about the hanging?” asked Mugino, exasperated.

But if Takitsubo wanted to get all worked up over false charges, that was her business.

“In the end, this looks like the machine.”

Frenda lightly slapped her small palm against a glass cylinder taller than she was. The top was covered by a fairly sturdy metal lid and several thick tubes connected to it. The glass itself probably wasn’t normal and it was as thick as the windows of a presidential vehicle.

It had the look of a tool used for chemistry or physics experiments.

“Looks like a tornado maker,” said Takitsubo.

Was that why a scene from an educational program appeared in the backs of their minds?

The device was essentially a press that applied incredible pressure, but it wasn’t used on metal.

It was used on liquids.

“Ever heard of epithermal gold deposits? …For some reason, lots of gold veins are found in hot spring regions and one theorized explanation says the materials in the volcano or hot springs combine underground to form gold. In the end, a fair amount of research has been done to determine the time, heat, pressure, and distribution of hot spring materials needed to create one gram of gold. That said, I’ve never heard of it being mass-produced that way.”

If you wanted to artificially acquire gold, there were plenty of options, including gathering up accessories from pawn shops and prying open phones. It wasn’t worth spending vast amounts of research funding on. Or so it had seemed.

“Then did this DIY Garage personally work out the exact values needed to make that cocktail and then greatly reduced the necessary time and expenses with this artificial device? I don’t know if he’s processing a bunch of hot spring water brought in from elsewhere or mixing chemicals together, but he must have gotten it working as a business and started selling the product.”

Kinuhata frowned at Takitsubo’s explanation.

“Then is this super real gold?”

“If it was, Mugino wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.”

“Oh,” said Kinuhata, falling silent.

Exactly right.

It was real but fake. Mugino brushed her hair off her shoulder and explained.

“My guess is he could create something a lot like pure gold, but he couldn’t completely remove the hot spring impurities. And this created a subtle difference in the surface luster.”

That was probably enough to fool the mechanical sensors.

After all, it really did contain the components of real gold.

Mugino scoffed.

This was better than an alloy that simply looked golden, but it was still visually recognizable as fake. And more than that, the fact that he introduced it to the market under false pretenses said a lot. Even the counterfeiter knew it couldn’t truly pass as real gold.

“If he had super stuck to this a while longer, I bet he could’ve become one of the great inventors of our time.”

“I’m not so sure. The creation of artificial diamonds didn’t cause the global economy to collapse.”

At any rate, this confirmed that DIY Garage was the gold counterfeiter.

Now they had to either gather information in the lab and track him down wherever he was or wait here for him to return. It was up to Mugino to make that decision, but…

“Oh?”

Someone was there.

A small man stood near the side entrance. He was carrying a paper bag in his arms. The bag was overflowing with food.

DIY Garage.

“I had set things up to kill any intruders, but was there a malfunction? Would you mind giving me your thoughts and opinions so I can investigate how this happened?”

“Hey, Mugino.”

Frenda didn’t see this as a problem.

As long as no unfortunate false charges were involved, this was no more than a shortcut.

There was no need to hold back against another member of the dark side.

“In the end, our job is done once we stop the flow of counterfeit gold, right? And if he struggles, we can kill him?”

“I’d really rather not die.”

He was blunt.

He didn’t sound like his life was on the line. His flippant tone made it sound like they were talking about someone else. You would think he was only saying he preferred not to buy eggs at full price when there was a sale later that day.

Mugino frowned in displeasure.

“Probably not, but what can you do about it at this point? This is what you get for your money-driven misdeeds when you lack the power to back it up.”

“Do you mind if I fight back?”

“Feel free if you’d prefer a painful death.”

“Thank you.”

With a horrible tearing sound, something broke through the wall behind DIY Garage. Like thin sheet metal being torn through. Giant objects burst out on either side of the small man.

Earsplitting scraping sounds continued.

There were several shapes.

Together, they formed a twisted cone measuring more than 2m. Each one was about the size of a roof tile. The countless pointed armor panels were forcibly welded or glued together to create some kind of artwork. Sword-like protrusions jutted out wildly. If this was art, the theme either had to be a toppled pile of junk or countless antennae.

“This is a product of polymer chemistry. My specialty is synthetic polymers, though. With a thermosetting polymer, it isn’t hard to create armor superior to steel. And polymer gels are neat too since they can be used as a microactuator. It’s like the surface of a CD. By moving the gel to create tiny dips and bumps that accurately mark out 0s and 1s, it functions as a signal that can be used to compute fairly complex calculations.”

But if this was a work of art, it probably wouldn’t be equipped with a giant heavy machinegun or a 40mm auto grenade launcher. On the right and left. The weapons were also made of artificial polymer. …Maybe the bullets were too.

A product of polymer chemistry.

The small man spoke calmly with the bizarre weapon protecting him.

“Well, it’s probably simplest to think of it as a strange kind of plastic.”

Kinuhata’s eyes widened as far as they would go.

“Ah, ah…”

The scraping sounds were not coming from the armor.

The armor pieces were completely fixed in place, so they did not collide with each other and make noise.

“You’re super kidding.”

“It’s not really worth calling a tank or a self-propelled gun,” said the small man, sounding unconcerned. As if he were showing off the tree in his garden he took care of daily. “The original idea was to develop an automatic sniping module. Sniping is all about math and physics, so I wanted to throw out the unscientific process of relying on the mental calculations of the kind of genius who is maybe born once every few decades and instead set a world record through simpler and more mechanical means. My initial goal was perfect aim at 5000 meters.”

The current record with absurd anti-materiel rounds (at least as far as the official records went) was less than 3000 meters. Perfect aim at 5000 meant being able to fire ten thousand times at that range and hit every single time. If that ability was mass produced and distributed like baseball bats and tennis rackets, the current security procedures for VIPs and military bases would be entirely useless.

“That said, it is a delicate field, so putting together a product and programming it with all the relevant ballistics and fluid mechanics isn’t enough to hit. Air temperature, humidity, wind direction, the shape of the bullet, the weight, the center of gravity, the rotation rate, gravity, the Coriolis force… You can include all of that and still, for whatever reason, you won’t hit. This issue is already well known, which is why the problem is such a headache. You should be able to use the same program used for the CIWS Gatling gun protecting a warship from aircraft, yet there is some other factor preventing an automatic sniping module from seeing the light of day.”

A Gatling gun that sprayed tens of thousands of bullets from all across a warship or base operated under very different rules from an anti-personnel sniper rifle that had to make a single decisive shot.

It could be seen as a struggle between two people.

“Ultimately, it all seems to come down to a biological adjustment we can only describe as intuition. I guess you could call it the ability to read some kind of unquantifiable current. I was unable to name and classify it. It isn’t as vague as a premonition, but it isn’t as precise as a prediction.”

On the dark side, information was more valuable than bullets. Not knowing critical information could be deadly, so you wanted to greedily absorb as much accurate information as you could get.

Or so they had thought.

Yet Kinuhata’s breathing nearly caught in her throat.

She had seen plenty of dark research in the shadows of this city.

But with DIY Garage’s creation – with the thing protecting him – she didn’t want to know what it really was.

She didn’t want confirmation of what it was.

Meanwhile, Mugino’s voice dropped terribly low. She apparently still had the willpower to stand up to this.

“If you can make all this, surely there was a better way to make use of that ability.”

“There are multiple types of vision: color, depth, kinetic, and so on. When a sniper peers down the scope, those different types of vision combine in a complex way very different from when viewing the scenery with two eyes.”

The small man calmly continued on.

He kept his own pace even in the face of Mugino Shizuri.

“And this isn’t limited to vision. The same goes for the way changes in air pressure can give you a headache or make an old wound ache. Subtle changes in air temperature and humidity are valuable information for a sniper. And your five senses aren’t simply governed by five sensory organs. For that matter, your sense of taste can detect five different types of flavor, so you strictly don’t only have five senses.”

“Th-then super what is this supposed to be!?”

“Well. I was wondering if I could create the perfect sniping module out of nothing other than plastic if I gradually reduced the living parts. I’m making progress little by little. For example, where I leave in living tissue, and how much, greatly changes each sniping module. The sniping scores of each module help me decide what is truly necessary, what I should make out of plastic, and what problems I still have to overcome. And I will eventually be able to create the eyeballs, eardrums, muscles, and organs out of plastic, so it will all work out. It’s something of a mess now, but just like the initial stealth fighters, this is a work in progress. But this is not an errant evolution. It is a necessary process. This is paving the path of evolution to the greatest next generation weapon, so none of it is unnecessary.”

That wasn’t what Kinuhata meant.

None of that mattered.

Yet DIY Garage didn’t understand her priorities at all.

And there were several bombshells mixed into his statements.

Spoken so casually they would slip right past you if you weren’t paying attention.

“Perfect aim at 5000 meters. It will take some cleverness, but I think I should be able to move beyond the horizon and reach 8000 meters. Regardless, I have succeeded at mass producing an automatic sniping module made with polymer chemistry. Now I just have to bring the costs down. This is hardly a purely industrial product, but that problem will eventually be solved as I simplify the process. This will boost efficiency well past the point of praying to god and waiting for a genius to join your army.”

“…”

As she listened, Frenda Seivelun was suddenly reminded of her sister.

She recalled one of the simple summer break project ideas found online. Bagworm caterpillars would create bags to protect themselves by gathering up dried leaves and small sticks, but if you put the caterpillars in a box full of wool and origami paper, they would gather those things and create colorful bags for themselves.

This was similar.

What was?

Everything in front of her.

In other words…



“In the end, are those…p-people!?”



Each individual plastic piece was about the size of a roof tile. The collections of those plastic pieces were more than 2 meters in size and covered in countless protrusions like a sazae or other spiral shell. It wasn’t clear how how heavy they were, but the things digging their nails into the ground and dragging the entire objects forward were the upper halves of human bodies.

“Their explosive strength and focus have been boosted beyond that of the average esper. Thanks to the plastic wiring optimizing the connections in their brains. Now, that more than doubles the weight of their heads, meaning they can’t stand up and walk around under their own power, so they have to crawl around on the ground.”

“Their brains are heavier, huh? And what happened to their minds exactly?”

“They can still think. I value their minds. But I can easily draw out their fighting instinct by heating their brains to specific numbers. And some of the plastics get hot when they react.”

This was the source of the scraping sounds.

They came not from plastic but from human fingernails.

The thin metal wall had likely been broken with the help of gunpowder rather than tackling through it. A blast of the heavy machine guns attached to the sides of the giant “bags” had destroyed the outer wall.

So.

Because camera image analysis, radar scanning, and other ordinary methods hadn’t been sufficient, had he tried to correct the error by forcibly attaching human eyes and ears!?

“The ratio of human body and plastic differs between units. I have created a gradation. I’m sure I will learn something new from seeing which one kills you best.”

Frenda’s eyes widened.

Something glistened stickily on the back of the hand of one of the noisily scraping bagworms. The slight sparkle was a remnant of sunblock.

As a dark side bomber and an expert in all forms of chemistry, she had built a variety of dangerous tools, but this was a forbidden territory not even Frenda Seivelun was willing to touch.

“You call this polymer chemistry? In the end, ''have you been abducting ordinary people and forcibly modifying them into this''!?”

“Were they abducted? Yes, but not by me. All I have done is purchase convenient products and used them to achieve my goal. So if this upsets you, take it up with the people who sold them to me. When you get down to it, human lives are the most expensive thing in this world. These weren’t exactly great specimens, but they still cost a fortune. Not that you can buy them through ordinary channels.”

He sounded like he was chatting while basking in the sun on the porch.

There really was something wrong with Academy City’s dark side. There had to be some unseen distortion of space. Everyone who spent time in that world lost their minds.

VSO meant 10-20 years old.

VSOP meant 20-30 years old.

…But this wasn’t about alcoholic drinks. Had that only been a code for recording human trafficking transactions!?

Mugino clicked her tongue.

Snipers.

She couldn’t help but be reminded of Mujinayama. These snipers took a very different form however.

“Come to think of it, there have been some missing person posters recently… But they were all mercilessly taken down because they would hurt the Daihaseisai’s image.”

“Again, that wasn’t me. Oh, dear. You seem to have the wrong idea. All I’ve done is assemble the parts I bought to create a polymer chemistry product.”

He wasn’t trembling in fear at having his crimes revealed, but he also didn’t seem to be gloating about the results of his messed-up research.

DIY Garage spoke as casually as if he were discussing the weather.

Kinuhata was breathing heavily. She couldn’t stop sweating.

She wasn’t the only victim of the dark side’s inhumane experiments. She had known that intellectually, but seeing it for herself was something else entirely. She was forced to face the fact that she was receiving dirty money to protect the city that did this kind of thing. It might not be an unscientific thought, but she knew she definitely wasn’t going to heaven.

“Tch. Super what are you thinking, you bastard!?”

“Yes, I do have to wonder what my client was thinking when they approached me to build this.”

He made it sound like it wasn’t his problem.

It was like her words couldn’t hit him. Or more like they did hit him but slid right off, leaving an unpleasant sensation behind.

Maybe nothing in the world was his problem. He was the worst kind of scientist. The type who would build whatever idea popped into his head without considering if it would bring about the end of the world.

“Kinuhata.”

She didn’t need to be told.

Arguing with that freak wouldn’t accomplish anything.

The direct threat lay elsewhere.

The automatic sniping modules were armed with heavy machine guns and auto grenade launchers.

Were they communicating with each other? Were they scanning the terrain, the atmosphere, and other aspects of their surroundings? The many long protrusions extending from the “bags” glowed softly.

The threat was those human bagworms.

But…

“Do we seriously have to super fight those things? I mean, the people used to make those modules or bagworms or whatever aren’t even from the dark side!! Is there super some way of saving them!?”

“I really don’t think so.”

The interruption came from DIY Garage as the bizarre monsters guarded him.

The man who knew them better than anyone spoke calmly.

“See, I melted their bodies down bit by bit to completely fuse their muscles, blood vessels, and nerves with the various components. Forcibly tearing them out would kill them from blood loss and shock due to pain. Their nerves are kept in a constant state of excitement to boost the transmission speed, but it’s more effective to directly inject the adrenaline than to have it secreted by their adrenal glands, right? Not to mention that the actual biological parts leftover are fairly light. They don’t provide enough internal pressure, so even if you applied general anesthesia and performed surgery, they wouldn’t be able to maintain their own blood pressure. Ordinarily, the optimal pressure is preserved by shape-memory polymers – that is, tiny bits of gel – that create an incombustible gas to inflate them from within. My point is that they can’t survive with just their biological parts.”

That was awful.

''And had all of that really, truly been necessary!?

“Kinuhata.”

Again, an interrupting voice brought her back to her senses.

DIY Garage.

He really was a professional steeped in the dark side, so he lacked the morality that would allow him to be convinced through conversation. Speaking with him would only let him infect Kinuhata with his ideas.

“Really, it’s you girls who are the cruel ones.”

“…”

“You barged into my lab with deadly tools and powers, ransacked the place, and then lay in wait for me to return. So this isn’t my fault. It was your barbaric actions that forced me to play my own trump card.”