Updated: January 29, 2005

A/N: So you've read this far, eh? Must be pretty interested in what I'm about to do next…the suspense must really be killing you. Yup, I bet you wouldn't be able to click the back button even if I dared you right now. xD Don't you just love cliffhangers?

How is Ayumi going to respond? How will Ran take it? Will Conan and Ai make it through their interrogations? Will Ai ever find her true reason to smile?

Well, all these questions will have to wait, because this chapter is an interlude. xD Happy readings!

Interlude I

Twelve year old Shiho Miyano tiredly rubbed her sleep ridden eyes as she lethargically shuffled across the room, a beaker containing a brown-yellow mixture filled to the brim in her hands. Her usually vibrant strawberry blonde hair fell limply against her head, and her sparkling sapphire eyes had been chipped away to a tarnished arctic color. Both were already telltale signs of her health, mainly lack of sleep.

The solution was all but carelessly emptied down the sink as she was instructed to do if they were to be failed. There was always the possibility of her experiment becoming a biohazard, but the organization assured her that it would be taken care of. So, she didn't worry about it.

Her tired form slumped against the sink's edge, two fingers delicately massaging her temples. Her eyelids threatened to fall shut and not open again for at least fourteen hours. Shiho cursed her weak and frail body for wanting to give up. Time was precious, and she couldn't use what little she had for sleep! She was so close…just a little more…Shiho begged for her body to hold out for just a few more hours. A few more tests, that's all she needed.

At least that's what she kept telling herself…for the first seven hours. Shiho resisted the incredibly strong urge to slam her fists on the counter out of frustration, but she couldn't stop the long vicious string of her colorful vocabulary from spilling out.

Concealing emotions she had under control. Restraining her mouth was another matter. But she was getting better at it! With age comes experience, right? And with experience comes…restraint? Eh…getting a bit off track here. Back to her dilemma.

She felt as if she could understand how Edison felt after creating 50,000 some failed light bulbs…or was it 10,000? Even then, the man still had the gall to claim, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

Shiho thought it was more of a stubborn determination of trial and error, rather than actual genius.

She knew nothing in real life was perfect the first time, but this was already her 2,300th some time! Well, actually, if she checked her log book, it was only her 2175th time…

She drained the contents into her multi-color stained sink, cleaned the equipment, and put everything back in its proper place. She felt it would be much safer if she fell asleep in her own bed, rather than in the midst of her work, surrounded by dozens of potentially lethal chemicals. The young chemist plopped back onto her stool, exhausted. She was sure to come back tomorrow morning- er…later this morning to resume her experiments.

Upon exiting, she grabbed her backpack which was stuffed with a few moderately thick textbooks. They gave her back quite a strain, but Shiho just thought of it as running with weights.

She came out from the back door, only stepping out from the shadows when she was sure no one was around. She took one last glance at the building from which she came from. It was a pharmacy. Securing her coat tighter around her shivering frame, she made her way through the cold.

Her feet carried her towards a university. That's right. Twelve year old Shiho Miyano was attending a university. She slipped through security and traveled through hidden paths to arrive at the dorms. If she was anyone else, she'd be worried about the lax on security. Since she wasn't anyone else, Shiho was quite glad, for it allowed her to travel around without too much trouble.

She pulled out two oddly shaped pins from her lab coat pocket and set her fingers to work on the lock. Her nimble fingers fiddled with the window for a moment, and she was awarded with a soft click. She slid it open then crawled inside as quietly as she could. The room was dark. Well, not that it was unnatural for it to be dark, seeing as it was night and no lights were turned on. She quietly made her way across the room, occasionally stumbling over random items cast onto the floor.

The lights flicked on.

Her body recoiled from the unexpected light flashing across her dilating eyes. Shiho groaned at the thought of being caught again. How utterly embarrassing…not to mention disappointing. When she hesitantly cracked one eye open, a young man around the age of twenty strode up to her. Shiho suppressed the forming pout on her face. Then she thought about it again. She soon had a full blown pout spread across her lips.

The man paused in mid-step, raising a thin eyebrow at her actions. Obviously he knew Shiho otherwise it wouldn't have been so surprising to see her pouting. He examined her intently much like a sculpture judging his masterpiece. He smirked. "Such foolish mistakes you make every day, maggot." He spat out harshly. "Your little act is in dire need of improvement. I can already see that you have a gun hidden underneath your coat."

Meet Mackwell Pierce, he's a twenty-one year old man with sandy blonde hair parted on the left, the ends of his hair barely falling over his sharp haunting eyes. If Shiho had to describe the color, she'd say it resembled mud smeared over a ruby gem. His irises were light brown with specks of brilliant red shining through them. Oh, but his other features were not to be overlooked either. To say he was quite pleasing to the eye would've been an understatement. Mackwell had the talent to reduce even the most mature of women into giddy little school girls with a mere look in their direction but… often times he was just trying to catch a glance of the clock behind them…

One would think with his handsome looks, numerous women would flock to him, but his cold and inhospitable attitude turns many of them away. Mackwell would even go as far as to creating an exploding concoction just to scare them away. Actually, he has. Instead of socializing, partying, and having an all around good time, the man pours over his studies and researching the ability to eternally prolong death or otherwise known as immortality.

He had no interest at all in women. Or men for that matter… Love, relationships, finding "the one", all of those things was deemed as vanity to him. His two cents on the topic of love would be, "Waste of time, waste of money, and waste of good sanity." He believed if he could reach a state of immortality, then he could gain everything in the world. Nothing would be able to stop him. To gain immortality, that was a cause worthy of his superior intellect and attention. He would take advantage of the Organization's funding to complete it too.

Such a man was registered as Shiho's guardian by orders of the Black Organization in case Shiho had second thoughts about working for the organization. If she ever showed any harmful intentions towards the Black Organization, Mackwell was to –quite literally- strike her down on the spot.

To the outside world, Mackwell and Shiho are known under the names of Lance and Alice Blackthorn respectively. Seeing as they were supposedly related, they were placed in the same dormitory room.

Shiho looked down to inspect where she had gone wrong in the placement of her gun. Granted, it was just an air gun, but there would be many questions if she was ever found carrying one. "And people actually believe that you're some depressed loner insanely obsessed with alchemy in your spare time, Mackwell?"

The man shrugged in his casual manner. "Why ask me? Is it something I have control over?" He asked in a cold and clipped tone. It sounded as if he was restraining a certain emotion from entering his voice.

"I suppose not…" She answered evenly. Shiho wasn't intimidated by him. She knew he was just one of those people that liked to snap at people coldly, but he was a gentle soul...well, as gentle of a soul a Syndicate member could be. His education was also funded by the Black Organization just like Shiho's.

"So where were you returning from this time of day?" Both knew the question wasn't necessary, but it was asked nonetheless.

Shiho smiled mysteriously, a habit she picked up while living with her fellow organization member. Ambiguous answers irked Mackwell to no end, and the girl just loved getting under his skin. It was like a game they played, exchanging sarcastic remarks with each other until one could not make a comeback, a battle of wits if you will. The two would do little things simply to bug the heck out of the other. Could it be classified as a friendly rivalry? Seeing an alchemist and chemist coexisting under the same roof was interesting indeed.

The two shared a most curious relationship. It wasn't quite to the point of a brother-sister one. It looked no where near a father-daughter one. It couldn't even be considered friends, and they seemed to know each other too well for them to be just acquaintances. The age difference between them was too great to even begin suggesting anything more intimate. It was probably more of a house-arrestee and guard type thing.

"Well?" He asked, not accepting her silent reply as a satisfactory answer.

A mischievous gleam entered Shiho's eyes. "I'm touched by your concern."

Mackwell scoffed, and the subject was left alone. He slipped back into the bottom bunk bed but not before turning the lights off.

Shiho glanced at the glowing digits of their alarm clock. Based on the numbers, dawn was about to break out. She yawned freely without bothering to cover her mouth. No one was around to see but a sleeping Mackwell, and he wasn't even facing her. She changed in the bathroom then climbed into the top bunk and fell asleep just as fast as the lights clicked off.

Later that morning, Shiho sat in her 11 A.M. class, almost ready to gouge her own eyes out with her mechanical pencil. Wait, what I meant to say was that she would've gouged her own eyes out if not for the fact that her hands were cramped too badly to move. In her notebook, pages and pages were filled with notes, diagrams, and charts neatly copied down but slightly messier where she started writing with her other hand. She could've sworn her fingers were twitching from the abuse.

As for being able to write with either hand, Shiho had developed that skill for quite some time now and has been perfecting it ever since she discovered that one hand simply could not bare the amount of strenuous note taking. Being ambidextrous was very important for her if she wanted to survive through college.

Shiho did her best to stay attentive, but her mind kept drifting towards her experiments. There was just something strange about them. She didn't get it. What was the purpose in creating a drug that not one autopsy machine, no matter how advanced, could identify? It was an impossible task. Yet…the organization was willing to pay for all her college expenses. Why would they do such a thing, simply for her to strive after an impossible goal? There had to be something more to this, something she had yet to comprehend. Shiho had her suspicions about it becoming a strong negotiation factor or a way to try up loose ends, but still she could not be sure.

But should she really try to investigate? Was it really worth the risk? What if the information was classified- Wait. If they wouldn't tell her, then it probably is privileged information. So that thought was out. Would her curiosity threaten her life? An even scarier thought entered her mind. Would it threaten her sister's life?

Unlike Shiho, her sister Akemi was somewhat happily living her life with a foster family without being hounded by the Black Organization. What exactly would happen if Shiho found out she was creating something against her beliefs and terminated the project? Would the Organization force her to complete it by threatening her sister? And what exactly could she find out about her experiments that would have her stop them? Perhaps ignorance truly was bliss…

Shiho was torn by indecision. It felt like her insides were going through a paper shredder with all the nerves still connected to her, so she felt each and every blade shredding through her. Should she attempt to find out? Or remain as the Organization's puppet, bending towards all their whims? Should she just run away, leaving everything behind and live the life of a person wanted by the Organization? Would she just leave her sister's fate subject to the Black Organization?

A sharp jab into her side brought Shiho out of her musings. Her head whipped towards Mackwell to the left of her to accuse him of the injustice, but he merely sat there staring at the front blankly, uninterested. That's when she noticed a majority of the students were staring in her direction, some snickering.

Before she had time to ponder their actions or discover her assaulter, someone to the immediate right of her cleared their throat impatiently. As she turned to see who was creating that distracting sound, she noticed the professor normally stationed at the front of the class was missing.

Where had she gone to?

Oh.

Shiho found the missing professor fixing her with an unimpressed look.

Shiho tried to play it off coolly, wanting as little trouble as possible. "Did you need something, Professor?" She smiled blithely at her. Oh, it was a horrible tiresome act she practiced everyday.

"Miss…Blackthorn, was it? You are indeed a very remarkable person."

Shiho inwardly frowned, sensing a disturbance in the force but kept her outward happy appearance, acting like the stereotypical twelve year old. "Thanks!" She forced herself to chirp. Ugh, where was a barf bag when you needed one?

"I've met very few people with the rare ability to sleep with their eyes open," Her professor continued in a stern tone, "But I've met even fewer who would dare to try in my class."

"Shi-" The twelve year old began hotly. "-taki mushrooms…" She finished weakly. Shiho couldn't exactly tell her teacher that she had not been sleeping with her eyes closed, but was merely not paying attention. "That's what I was dreaming about." She found her mouth moving of its own accord. Shiho grimaced in her mind. Not only did she dig her own grave, she was decorating it with pink sprinkles and streamers. "I apologize, Professor. But your last class talked about how fears affect your dreams, and when we performed that experiment, it never caught up to me until now."

Her professor locked on to her with a skeptical look. If you were placed inside the professor's mind, you could see the flashing red crosshair…"You're afraid of shitake mushrooms?"

"Deathly allergic of them, Professor."

"I see. Well, I'd like to discuss this…interesting allergy of yours after class, so, Miss Blackthorn, if you would stay behind?"

Shiho meekly nodded. "Yes, Professor."

The professor made her way back to the front of the room and resumed her lecture.

Out of the corner of her eye, Shiho found Mackwell smirking.

"Oh, shut up." Shiho muttered under her breath to him. "Like you've never spaced out in class."

"I haven't."

Shiho mentally took back all the nice things she said about Mackwell and didn't speak to him for quite some time after that.

My Little Corner of Gratitude:

SN 1987A: I am so glad that while you correct my errors, you also so give comments. Thanks. n.n So happy. Glad you liked the quote. xD Not sure if I was actually quoting Conan, or quoting Conan quoting Sherlock Holmes though. O.o

silverwind: Honestly? I've got her personality down? –cheers- I thought I only succeeded in making her an angry person. Lol. You…want a sequel too? 0.0 Wow. I'm not even half way done with this fanfic. Thanks.

chalicity: Thank you, thanks lots. n.n

Dagron: Lol, no worries. I'll hang that 9.9 up like one of those stuffed deer heads. Er…forgot what they were called. Thanks for taking your time to review.

Haibara Ai: Thank you so much for those encouraging words. I've…never considered having Vermouth pretend to be one of the little kids…But I don't think it'd work…not unless she turned midget all of a sudden…xD

Spede: Lol, glad you liked the scene with Ai, Conan, and falling pots. Thanks. n.n Plan to read more cute little scenes like that in the future. Yes…everyone's wondering what and how people are going to respond. –has evil glint in eye-

Vash: Whoo! It's another splendid one-liner, from the one, the only, Vash! Well, two if you count the dude from Trigun. n.n Thank you, thank you.

First Silvera: Interesting you say? Well, quite true. I was kind of getting tired of reading about them covering everything up all the time. I thought making them reveal themselves would make it a bit more…interesting. About Ayumi, some kids are just natural actors. Lol. Thanks for your review.

anime-obsession260: You think so highly of my story…thanks. xD I wouldn't exactly call it perfect though. There's a bunch of mistakes that SN 1987A finds for me when I'm too sleepy to catch them. –glares at the mistakes- Sneaky lil' devils…Wow. You sound like you're really hanging from a cliff there. Oh my…should I continue with a part II interlude or continue with the story? xD