Part I: Edogawa Conan
Conan couldn't remember his abduction. He did remember - in odd, academic detail - hundreds of clues and deductions. Mouri Ran, and the evening at the amusement park when he missed his chance to say he loved her. Help from Dr. Agasa. Mouri Kogoro's reluctant shelter. The enthusiasm of the Detective Boys. Hattori Heiji, his almost equal. Sardonic Ai.
Then there was confusion, darkness, roller-coaster movement, and a strange cell. He slept and woke at least twice before, with a shock like some last connection made, he came to himself.
He assembled what data he had, trying not to theorize yet about the Black Org's intentions. His clothes were a deliberate mockery of his usual jacket and shorts. The fabric was as stiff as canvas (and the coarsely knit underclothes not much better), with seams fused instead of sewn. His glasses were heavy empty frames. His shoes were cast plastic, and the lever for Dr. Agasa's kick mechanism was a painted detail.
When he stripped them off, he couldn't find any tracer or other devices. He put them on again. Coarse as the fabric was, he didn't care for being naked among his enemies.
The narrow cell would allow an adult to lie down or stand up, and not much more. For once Conan's shrunken form worked in his favor. The walls were thick irregular plastic, a five-sided oblong fixed against a flat red wall. Any bolts or fastenings were outside and out of his reach.
At one side of the cell, molded from the plastic of the floor, was a square well filled with a tangle of shaggy grey-green stems. He didn't recognize the species. It had an earthy smell that mostly covered the sharper stink of decay.
A similar cube depended from the ceiling. From its base to just above the planter a kind of half-pipe dented the wall. A gelatinous stuff oozed down through a port no larger than his child-sized palm, seeped along the grooved wall, and fell in trembling globes into the planter. It evaporated or was absorbed there, since the plastic well didn't overflow.
More small ports pierced the the ceiling beside the reservoir. He couldn't reach them, and if he did manage to get a hand out he couldn't see anything close enough to grasp. At least his immediate fate probably didn't include suffocation.
Conan spent more time examining the goo than anything else, because it was the only substance within the cell that changed. It didn't smell acidic or noxious. He dabbled one of the plastic shoes and then the canvas jacket into the stuff. The materials seemed undamaged. He risked touching it. The surface was almost solid. He had to punch hard to get a hand through, and it welled around his wrist like dough.
Eventually, thirsty and hungry enough to be reckless, he pinched off a glob of it and put it in his mouth. The solidity melted into a cool paste. It tasted faintly sweet. When he finally swallowed his stomach didn't protest.
The bright sides of the cell slowly got brighter. Shadows moved across it. Conan squinted, trying to make sense of what looked like a blurred video. A shape coalesced on the plastic walls, a distorted face three or four times as tall as Conan himself. A hand like the Buddha at Kamakura came up in front of the face. The whole sequence took close to half an hour. Just as the image of a fingertip flattened against the screen, the cell shook. Conan could only roll, curled and braced for impact.
The cell settled into its original position. He stood up again while it was still rocking. The image shrank, the face turning to one side and then sliding out of view.
The Black Org's softening-up period was almost textbook - isolation, dehumanizing uniform, random aural and visual input, and confusing environment. He was still alive though. They had a use for him, and that meant he had some hope of blocking their plans. What he feared most was that he was a hostage, that his parents or Kogoro or Hattori were being driven into a maze on his behalf.
No. That wasn't what he feared most. He could survive whatever the Black Org planned - probably - and hope to turn the tables on them. But if he was here . . . what were the chances that he was the only one? Was Ran here someplace? Or Ai, whom he promised to protect? Or worst of all, the real children, the Detective Boys?
Did they endure what he did? Was it worse for them, while he sat in something like comfort?
The gelatine could be drugged. He watched its flow, wondering if he should fast. If the Black Org had to come into the cell to inject or dose him, he'd have some small chance to escape or strike back.
He hadn't found anything like a door or hatch, though, or any way in which one could be hidden. And they could just as easily taint the air, like the Kaitou Kid's gas bombs. He couldn't afford to be too weak to act when he had a chance.
The special effects were easier to interpret once he got used to the distortion of the plastic walls. He seemed to be looking out across a chasm of space at a flat surface the size of a sports field, covered with bright flat slabs in house-sized piles. Beyond that was another chasm, and then a cliffside with a checkerboard of shiny squares. When he'd watched for a while he saw huge constructions wheeling laboriously through the chasms like movie monsters. Sometimes he'd have to look away for five or ten minutes, and check their positions when he looked back, just to be sure they were moving at all.
Between observations he either reviewed old cases or exercised. Wrapping one of the boots with the canvas jacket made a barely adequate substitute for a soccer ball. Kicking or striking it against the upper walls and ceiling gave him a chance to check the surfaces he couldn't reach. He found no weaknesses, but even that was necessary information.
When he got hungry enough that even ooze was better than nothing, he ate. Eventually, out of necessity, he used the planter for a toilet. After the third time he ate he stretched out on the floor and slept. When he woke everything was the same.
He'd eaten for the fifth time when he saw the translucent walls were darkening. The slow looming shapes merged into a distant fog.
When he heard scratching above him he assumed it was rats; just what he expected from the Black Org's jail. The noise got louder and more regular, until he recognized sawing. A rough slat of metal jabbed thru the translucent ceiling and rasped sideways. It had scored a square into the plastic.
A boot struck down at the translucent pane. It cracked. Someone peered down at Conan. The face was in shadow, but a top hat and the glint of a monacle were enough identification. Briefly he thought this might all be some humiliating prank of the white-caped thief, and shook with rage and disgust and relief.
(If the Kaitou Kid had set this up, Ran was safe. No-one got hurt at at a Kid heist!)
"You!"
"Everything you remember is a lie," the Kid said.