Chapter 73: Missing Persons
Summary: Hmmm, what's happening here? Mass missing people?
Warning! Chapters 72 & 73 were posted back-to-back. Make sure you don't miss Chapter 72!
Chapter 73: Missing Persons
Momo frowned as she looked between an extra-thick case file and an old school corkboard with a map and pins. She'd been riding high off the praise they'd gotten for their joint training instructors. Not to mention the delightful night she'd had with Izumi afterward. They'd lost a few points for being so willing to demolish the city to create roadblocks during the exercise but, on the whole, their professors had been pleased with how well the First Years had done working together. There had still been plenty of rough spots and places to improve, but they'd managed to defend 60 percent of their objectives from the swarm waves on their second attempt. A hell of an improvement from the total failure of the less organized first attempt. They had a ways to go yet, forty percent civilian losses was still far too high. But they'd made amazing strides in just four days.
Now, that positive feeling was being frayed as she took in the scope of what the Orca Agency had been dealing with while she and Jirou had been away for mandatory training. The first few missing persons reports had already occurred before they left, but the sheer scope of what they were dealing with hadn't been discovered until sidekicks assigned to investigate had reported back in. They'd discovered that the official missing persons reports were only the tip of what appeared to be an entire iceberg. The handful of official cases were for people who had someone who cared enough to file such reports. The vast majority of those actually missing appeared to be another class of individual entirely.
Homeless, vagrants, gangers, and runaways.
Essentially any group vulnerable to disappearances without being noticed had begun vanishing en masse. At least 53 were loosely confirmed as missing, with another twenty or so still being run down. Worse, the budding connections through the UA General Information HSN Hub had clued the Orca agency in that theirs wasn't the only jurisdiction facing such a problem. Endeavor's Agency, based down south in Osaka, had discovered they had a similar problem of almost identical scale. A half dozen other cities and prefectures, including Hamamatsu, Nara, and Shizuoka, were reporting lesser but still unusually high numbers of confirmed missing persons as well. Shizuoka, in particular, was a shocking addition, given that U.A. itself lay on the far western edge of the prefecture. Normally, the presence of UA acted as a deterrent to major criminal elements from moving in, with the majority of crimes in the prefecture being small gangs with more testosterone than brains. Or else villains who thought they had something to prove by acting in the shadow of UA's protection.
Any one of these large-scale cases alone would have been concerning, but with access to the new Information Hub allowing them to start connecting the dots, the case files had been quickly flagged as plausibly related. There were concerns that the League was involved, as the method to make Nomu was still unknown. Worse, those who knew of the MLA's existence were concerned about that group possibly being behind it as well. Potentially press-ganging people to be cannon fodder for some operation. Normally, she might not have been shown the file at all, given the sheer scale of the case. But Gang Orca wasn't an idiot. He was well aware that Momo was, along with Izumi, becoming a serious player in the heroics field despite not even having their full licenses yet. He also, of course, was aware of her connection to Izumi…and 2B. Who was becoming a bit more well known as a top-tier cyberpath than they'd ever intended to be the case.
She had, of course, sent the file off to 2B. But she'd noticed something odd herself that had her puzzling over the files. The trouble was, she wasn't sure what she'd noticed. Only that a detail was scratching at the back of her brain, telling her she should be noticing something but wasn't. Frowning as she failed to find any detail in the case files that stood out to that sense of something missing, she put it down and stared at the corkboard map and its pins. Okay, if it wasn't something to do with the crimes, then it must have something to do with the locations. But why were they bothering her?
The locations of people going missing seemed so random that virtually everyone was of the opinion that the randomness was intentional. Like someone was going out of their way to hide any possible chance of someone localizing a base. That…actually argued against the League, come to think of it. While the large number of locations across the country could indicate a warper, the attempt to hide a central point didn't fit with that. The League wouldn't care if someone located their portals, after all, as those portals would be gone again before it would matter.
So, if not the locations people went missing, maybe it was the cities? They were all urban areas. But that was merely logical if you wanted so many people to vanish unnoticed. What else did they have in commo—
Momo's eye widened as she realized what it was. Moments later, she was tapping into a seldom-used subsystem of the HSN and comparing the data to the maps. She was right. But…why would there be large scale missing persons cases located at the points of Japan with the highest QE concentrations? She'd only ever consulted the map, which was far from complete, when they'd started looking into the idea of using QE powered technology. A backburner project she and Izumi toyed with periodically, the research into it having produced a few usable things like the teleport scramblers and QE storage batteries. She couldn't see a reason for QE hotspots to be the center of some sort of mass missing persons case, though? Surely, it was just an artifact of those concentrations being in urban areas, where millions of people shed excess QE constantly?
But no, the longer she looked, the more uneasy she became.
The largest numbers, and the earliest disappearances, all matched with the biggest hotspots. She accessed a digital version of the map, then overlaid it on the QE hotspot map. A little tweaking altered it so it cataloged every missing person by the rough timeline they had for each event, then showed the progression. Her stomach sank as, with only a very few outliers that could be unconnected cases, the timeline showed the missing persons cases flowing out from three points. Yokohama, Osaka…and Deika City. They didn't have any reports from Deika itself. But given what they suspected about the mountain city that lay between Nagoya and Shizuoka, that wasn't a surprise. Come to think of it, the extreme levels of QE out in the modest mountain city and its surrounds was concerning in and of itself. Still, focus on the current issue, first.
There was a clear and obvious correlation here. But what the heck did it mean? And could she backtrack this phenomenon to figure out where people were disappearing too? Shaking her head, she decided she'd better bring this to the attention of others as well. Maybe it was nothing. But if it wasn't, it just might be the break they needed…
... ...
"Keystone is right. There is a clear pattern here. The trouble is, I can't see any reason for it either. Does QE density affect the regular world in some way? Maybe something that could encourage specific types of Quirk users to set up shop in ideal locations?"
The question came from Eraserhead who was, along with Nedzu, representing Shizuoka on the conference call that had been arranged between the trouble spots. Endeavor, looking dower but serious, was representing Osaka, with Gang Orca sitting beside Momo representing Yokohama. There were several other agencies on the call, representing smaller locations, such as Nara, that were beginning to be affected. For the most part, however, the lesser-known heroes were allowing UA and the two members of the top ten to carry the discussion. Similarly, while Momo could have answered Eraserhead's question, she deferred to Nedzu as the Dean spoke.
"Quirk Energy Density does have an effect on the weather, though it's poorly understood. It also can enhance emitter Quirks to a certain extent. But it's negligible in most cases and those Quirks would be the most likely to leave traces as well. So far, we've only seen signs of physical struggle and use of Quirks by the missing persons, yes?"
There were nods all around. It wasn't completely true. There had been some signs of elemental damage in a few places that hadn't been caused by the defender's Quirk. The problem was that even those few signs were maddeningly inconsistent. Worse, and most oddly, those bits of damage didn't bear any Quirk Energy at all by the time they'd been found. The largest bit of damage looked fire related, but hadn't given off any QE to scanners. Almost like someone had used an old-fashioned flamethrower or pressure washer instead of a Quirk.
"The reasoning might be insanity for all we know. Or even something the villains behind this themselves are unaware of. My question is simpler, can we use this to pinpoint a location to look for them?"
The question had come from one of the lower-ranked heroes that had been quiet until now. Redirect, based out of Nara, according to his label on the conference call. Nedzu made a motion that visibly deferred to Momo, who took a calm breath and nodded as she spoke for the first time since outlining her initial theory. The heroes had spent some time arguing its relevance, and she'd patiently waited through the debate.
"The answer to that is 'possibly.' In truth, we aren't going to get a precise location, even if my theory about the QE hotspots being relevant is entirely correct. What we can do, however, is identify the areas of highest concentration during the period all of this started. I had to reach out to several research groups that track QE fields, rather than only relying on only the HSN, but I have managed to put together relatively complete maps."
Momo still had access to the data feed she'd used to outline her initial hypothesis, and quickly brought up a more refined version of the hotspot timelapse she'd initially created. The HSN sensors only had spotty coverage away from their facilities, as their study of natural QE fields had been a side project at best. But several scientific groups had more comprehensive, if lower resolution, coverage, and she'd been able to stitch together a reasonable hotspot map for the last two months after making some calls. Now, she rewound to the timeframe just before the reports had begun in earnest, focusing on Osaka first.
"As you can see, the area we have the smallest target area for is in Osaka. The missing persons reports there began almost directly after Endeavor's fight with the Super Nomu, as it's been tentatively labeled. That fight, along with the engagement with the villain Dabi at the end, caused a major spike in the local QE field."
Changing the map focus, she shifted it to Yokohama, specifically the Kamino Ward.
"Similarly, there is still a major hotspot lingering in Kamino after the death of All for One. The battle involved so many high-level combatants that the entire ward is still saturated and was only slowly dispersing. Here we have the first sign that something involving the QE itself may be happening. One group, the Research Institute of Quirk Development, has had QE sensors pointed at the entire area since shortly after the battle. Their intent was to study if the strong QE fields created resulted in stronger Quirks developing in children in the area at the time. Which isn't particularly helpful to us…except that it means they noticed something odd."
Momo replaced the graphic showing the hotspot in general, with one showing two separate timelapse models of QE fields playing on loop. They'd been colored to look a lot like weather maps, to make them easy to read for the layman, and they were noticeably different.
"The left model is what the QE dispersion should be doing, if only natural factors were in play. It's imperfect, as this is still a relatively new science. Hence why the institute didn't react with particular concern when the model on the right is what has actually been happening. There was a brief hiccup, where a lot of QE field strength dropped dramatically, only for it to then increase and stabilize. In and of itself, a curiosity…except that the maps we have show a nearly identical drop and spike in both Osaka and just outside Deika city."
It was Endeavor who, after several moments for it to sink in for everyone, nodded decisively. The man might be an asshole, but he was an effective hero, and he'd clearly seen enough.
"Even if this proves unrelated to the case, my agency will be looking into it. This feels entirely too much like a mad science variety villain discovering something that can be weaponized. The Osaka location is only a few dozen city blocks, as well, and more recent. There's some complication as damages are still being repaired there. But I will be having the area swept by my sidekicks, to see if they turn up anything."
Gang Orca nodded, voice thoughtful as he added his two yen.
"I agree. The Kamino Ward is too large for my agency to canvas alone. But I'll reach out to a few of the other local agencies. I'll have my own people check the area right around the former Nomu warehouse. Presumably, that would have been the point of highest concentration."
A Hero from Hamamatsu interjected next, pointing out something else.
"While that's a good idea, the fact that this has spread means it might continue to spread farther. I'll concentrate on the corridor leading from Shizuoka to Hamamatsu, to see if there's any suspicious traffic. I'd suggest UA do the same from their end. Meanwhile, we might also want to warn the cities that would be next in line if the pattern continues. If it does continue, and they are alert to be on the lookout, they might get lucky on their end and catch whoever this is still setting up."
There were murmurs of agreement at that, with others beginning to speak up slowly. Collaboration on this scale was extremely unusual, leaving all the agencies involved fumbling to figure out how to work together. But everyone, even Endeavor, seemed to sense that it was necessary this time. Momo, watching the whole thing, couldn't help but compare it to their recent training. This was just the same issue on a grander scale, wasn't it? Hopefully, the new HSN Hubs would be effective in helping bridge the gaps she hadn't even realized existed, just as better command and control for their city-defense plan had during training…
... ... ... ... ... ...
Author's Note: This is the one-per-release that I mention this and my other works have a Page. Currently, chapters 74-77 (roughly 16,000 additional words) are already up in Early Access! Not to mention there are early access chapters of my other stories amounting to roughly another 40-60k words at any given time. If you're enjoying this story, please consider tossing a bit of support my way?