Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter4
Uiharu Kazari
Uiharu Kazari was a first year middle school girl who was part of Judgment, a group that protected the peace of Academy City (although they primarily dealt with issues within the schools). Normally, she wore a short sleeved sailor uniform and had artificial flowers covering her head, but this day was a rare exception.
“Uuh… Is this kind of ability really needed for the periodic Judgment training…?” muttered Uiharu dejectedly.
She was wearing what could perhaps be called a jumpsuit. The upper clothing and the pants were completely combined into one piece of clothing and a zipper ran all the way from her neck down to her waist. It made her look something like an F1 racing driver. Since it was colored a bright orange, it also made her look like a member of a foreign rescue team.
This outfit gave her long sleeves and long pants despite the broiling hot weather of midsummer.
(It’s hot, it stinks, and it’s stuffy!! Eee!! This is the worst!!)
She was also wearing something similar to a backpack.
However, it had an excessive number of belts holding it on. It had the basic two over the shoulders, but belts made of synthetic fiber also stretched over the chest, stomach, and around the legs at the thighs.
It was a parachute.
If she pulled the string near her waist, it would open up like a giant umbrella, but it was currently contained within that bag.
(Wait, how am I supposed to get this thing off…? Huh? This…no, this switch isn’t enough…?)
The reason Uiharu was struggling with it was simple.
She spoke this reason aloud with a puzzled look on her face.
“Why was the free fall training suddenly cancelled?”
It was 6:10 PM on August 1st.
A single large vehicle travelled along a main road in the evening with several guard vehicles surrounding it.
It resembled the kind of towing vehicle used to transport bullet train cars.
Those extremely large carriers were used to take the bullet train from the factory it was created in to the track. Their large engines were similar to those of armored cars or snowplows and they were over 30 meters long including the back portion holding the bullet train car. The bullet train would be surrounded by a metal framework similar to those that make up buildings. Bolts and wires running horizontally and vertically held it all in place.
However, this vehicle was not towing a bullet train.
It was towing a satellite.
The giant vehicle was called the satellite guidance vehicle.
Surrounded by guard vehicles, it was taking the satellite from a lab in District 10 where it had been filled with fuel, through Districts 7 and 18, and finally to a rocket launch pad in District 23.
Or so it should have.
“Wait…What are you doing…?”
The change was first noticed around the time they passed from District 10 to District 7. The person who noticed it was the driver of the accompanying guard vehicle driving in front of the giant satellite guidance vehicle. He first saw it in the rearview mirror and then actually turned his head around to look.
The giant guidance vehicle that held the satellite was approaching from behind him.
It was destroying the proper balance of the convoy.
Or rather…
“Foot Soldier to General. You’re getting too close. Decelerate and keep your proper distance. I repeat, Foot Soldier to General…W-wahh!?”
The giant satellite guidance vehicle rapidly approached as if to collide with him, so the driver of the front guard vehicle frantically turned the wheel to the side at the last second. Due to the change of course, the giant vehicle with the satellite scraped across the guard vehicle’s back lights and continued on ahead.
“You idiot!! The front guard doesn’t give up his position no matter what. I don’t know what’s going on, but stop it even if you have to run it off the road!!” rebuked his colleague over the radio.
“I’d like to see you try that,” replied the driver as he wiped a cold sweat from his forehead.
Running the large vehicle off the road would have been doable. In fact, the driver was confident in his ability to do so even against such a large vehicle.
However…
“Do you know what kind of fuel is inside that satellite!? It has 1500 kilograms of hydrazine in it!! That stuff is toxic! Do you have any idea what would happen if it leaked out into the city!?”
As the two drivers yelled back and forth over the radio, the satellite guidance vehicle continued to accelerate. It shot ahead, plowing the guard vehicles meant to protect it out of the way, and then pulled away from the convoy.
They all noticed the abnormality and they all understood the danger.
However, none of them did anything.
As they watched it, the large vehicle carrying the satellite had become a large weapon in and of itself.
The 73rd branch office of Anti-Skill in District 7 was as busy as a beehive.
Anti-Skill also protected the peace of Academy City, but it was a different organization from Judgment. While Judgment was made up of students, Anti-Skill was made up of trained teachers.
Uiharu Kazari arrived inside that area that looked like a police station. They had gone beyond their own organization and called her in due to the emergency situation.
A female Anti-Skill member who just so happened to be near the entrance looked at Uiharu with a puzzled expression.
“…What’s with that look?”
“Oh, umm…sorry. I was suddenly called here while in the middle of my periodic training…” responded Uiharu as she shrunk down in her orange jumpsuit and parachute.
Hearing that, the woman frowned even further.
“What kind of training uses a whole bunch of flowers…?”
“Eh? That!? The flowers on my head are stranger than the parachute!?”
Uiharu’s outburst drew the attention of a few more of the adults around her. She shrank down even further and snuck off further into the office.
The woman who had spoken to her before looked down at the student ID Uiharu held out.
“So you’re Uiharu Kazari from Judgment’s 177th branch office. We were hoping for Shirai Kuroko, the teleportation esper.”
“S-sorry. I could not get a hold of her.”
“If we had her, we would have a lot more options of how to deal with this… I guess I’ll go search through the Bank for any other Judgment members who might be of some use. Anyway, they’re having a meeting over there. You can get a grasp on the situation there.”
Hearing that, Uiharu obediently headed on into the office.
Even if it was the investigation headquarters, they must not have had much time to spend on appearances. They were not using some grand meeting room. Instead, the strategy meeting was taking place in a corner of the office around a whiteboard with seats gathered around it.
“The special vehicle with the satellite aboard is currently out of control. It has strayed from its scheduled route and is currently heading north on line #49,” said a man, his voice filling the office. “Technically, it is not a satellite in and of itself. It is only a module for Hikoboshi II to allow it to carry out additional experiments. However, it can separate and navigate on its own, so it is essentially the same as a satellite. It is only not classified as one to make things easier as far as international treaties are concerned.”
The bespectacled teacher would normally be teaching classes, but now he was explaining the gist of the incident. One of the other Anti-Skill members raised his hand and asked a question like a student taking a class.
“Can we contact the driver?”
“There is no issue with the vehicle’s radio, but what she has told us is the real issue.” The bespectacled Anti-Skill member gave a sigh. “It seems a message appeared on the internet-connected GPS system in the vehicle. It said the car would be crashed using the remote control system if she did not follow the path displayed by the GPS system. Thanks to this, the driver can do nothing but keep the cursor showing the vehicle’s location from exiting a moving red circle on the screen. She has no idea where she is going.”
“…So it’s a carjacking with an unknown criminal. This really is a convenient age we live in.”
Uiharu had taken a seat in an arbitrary empty seat in the office and she now asked a question.
“What did the message mean about crashing the vehicle using the remote control system?”
“Judgment, hm?”
The bespectacled Anti-Skill member who had given the explanation looked at Uiharu and her outfit with a puzzled looked, but they had been the one to request help from Judgment in the first place. The man seemed to think she was butting into their turf, but he still answered her question.
“That vehicle has an automatic evasion system in case of emergencies. If the driver were to lose consciousness due to a heart attack or brain hemorrhage, the system can safely stop the vehicle on the side of the road. It seems that has been taken advantage of,” he explained. “This evasion system can only take control of the vehicle for 100 seconds. However, that is more than enough time to cause some kind of accident. After all, it has complete control of the gas pedal and steering wheel.”
“But this has never been tested before. It might just be an empty threat.”
“We can’t take that risk,” said the man slightly angrily in response to the casual comment. “That satellite has 1500 kilograms of a toxic fuel known as hydrazine. If the vehicle does crash, the satellite could be destroyed and the fuel could catch fire. If that happens, that toxic substance will be sent in to the air, contaminating everywhere within a kilometer radius. And the seasonal winds could spread the effects even further. If you breathe it in, everything from your throat to your lungs will become inflamed. This is not a situation where we can rely on ‘mights’. The driver made the correct decision.”
The suit-wearing adults either sighed or clicked their tongues.
Of course, this was not directed at their colleague who had asked a strange question. It was due to their dislike of the situation.
“The criminal hacked into the GPS system to display this message and to continually display this red circle on the display in real time. This is clearly more than just a prank. …We should assume the criminal can actually carry out their threat if it comes to it.”
Uiharu’s breath caught in her throat at how bad the situation was.
“…Where is the criminal sending the vehicle?” she asked.
“That’s what we need to find out. We would like some help from your information analysis abilities.”
