To Aru Majutsu no Index part 2

Chapter 3: In the Land of Sealed Powers. Reformatory.

1

A cold sweat had appeared all over Baba Yoshio's body.

He was part of Member just like the Professor. He provided support for the Professor by remotely controlling the four-legged robot.

"You bastard...Don't go off and die like that!!"

He cursed the man, but the dead weren't going to come save him.

Baba clicked his tongue and began preparations for evacuation. He was a few hundred meters below the ground in the underground city developed in District 22. Specifically, he was in a nuclear shelter for VIPs known as the "Summer Resort". It was the private property of a member of the board of directors, but, since it wasn't used very often, he had deactivated the security and was using it for himself. The inside was made to be like a luxurious villa and it even had special lines for net conferences, so it was a wonderful place for a hacker like Baba. He had had his eye on the place for a while, but, now that he was trying it out, he found it to be truly exceptional.

However, it was not an area of complete safety.

He didn't know what power his enemy had, but the thick walls would be of no use against a teleportation-type esper. The Professor had been easily killed by one of Academy City's seven Level 5s. Someone like that would easily be able to force open the shelter's door. Not to mention that it was even possible that the enemy could come with the latest equipment like an anti-barrier shotgun.

(It won't take him long to suspect I'm here. I need to get out of here!!)

He stuffed the various pieces of machinery centered around his notebook computer in his bag, grabbed the piles of cash that had been stored in the "Summer Resort", and headed for the exit elevator.

But there was no response when he pressed the button.

"...?"

He headed for the door to the stairs that were located elsewhere, but the door wouldn't unlock.

That was when the lights in the shelter turned bright red. Startled, Baba looked over to the shelter's maintenance control monitor. It read, "For security reasons, all locks have been closed."

Baba's eyes bulged and he heard an odd noise.

It almost sounded like a waterfall.

It was quite a noise. It had to be in order to be audible through the thick shelter walls.

"Water...!?"

Some very bad possibilities ran through the back of Baba Yoshio's mind.

If someone was pouring tons upon tons of water down the elevator shaft or the stairwell using a fire hose...

The automatic motors – to say nothing of a human's arms – would be unable to open the doors with that much water pressure. And even if the doors could be opened, an overwhelming deluge of a tremendous amount of water was all that waited on the other side.

Member had a teleportation-type esper named Saraku (Accelerator had called him Kill Point), but he had been defeated in District 23. There was no one to save him in this situation.

"Tch!!"

Baba hurriedly pulled his notebook computer from his bag and turned it on. He then connected to the communication line for net conferences and contacted someone else from Member. The Professor and Kill Point were gone, so there was only one person left to contact. It was a girl who the Professor had called a magician.

However, the answer to the email explaining his situation came quickly and was quite brief.

"If I remember correctly, the information you collected on the organizations is stored on different servers for each organization. With that, I don't need you. I will pursue my enemy. I don't have time to clean up your mess."