Fallout Chapter 6, a detective conan/case closed fanfic

Disclaimer: not mine. Movie-verse and anime-verse.

Chapter 6

"You!"

Hakuba let his gun droop to the ground and gave Heiji a look of pure disdain while the Osakan openly glared at the blonde detective. "What are you doing here?" Hakuba muttered, brushing past a confused Kaito and advancing on the detective of the west climbing in the window. "Didn't you already get your fill of breaking through windows or do you just feel the need to break everything you touch?!"

"What are you doing keeping Ku-Conan-kun locked up and beat up in this room?!" Heiji shot back angrily, edging himself between Hakuba and the bed. "What've ya been doing to the kid?!"

"My window!" Kaito mourned softly, completely drowned out by the two detectives holding their heated shouting match in the middle of his bedroom.

"So this is my fault?!" Hakuba yelled back, "You can't honestly be blaming me because Kudo-kun decided hanging around with wanted criminals and breaking into burning buildings was a good idea?! I'm the one who warned him something like this might happen!"

From the bed Conan rolled his eyes and tried to push off the mattress to hitch himself higher. He jumped slightly when a white card gun was dropped low in his lap and he realized Kaito had moved to his side, pushing away the chair full of books. "Don't try to move," he murmured, ignoring the bickering detectives that were currently paying them no attention. "Do you want to sit up?" With a pained nod from Conan for affirmation, he grabbed his pillows from his futon, still laid out, and carefully lifted the boy to a sitting position arranging the pillows behind him. "Are they always like this?" he asked.

"Pretty much. Just usually… not this loud," Conan answered watching the shouting match calmly.

Kaito looked him over with an appraising eye noting the shrunken detective's relaxed attitude at the last few minutes of mayhem that had transpired. "Couldn't you have found a better way to entertain yourself? One that didn't involve my window?"

"You… caught me," Conan retorted unabashedly without a hint of apology or shame. "My dad's credit card… is in Ran's… jewelry box. Feel free to… cover the cost… with that."

"I know, I found it when I snuck over yesterday to pack an overnight for you." Kaito pulled out the bag he had stuffed under the bed the night before and pulled the small card out of a zippered section, dropping it lightly in Conan's hand. Conan raised an eyebrow, fixing him with a 'look'. "I figured you might need it for emergencies. I swear I didn't touch her jewelry," he said in a rush catching Conan's look.

"Right," Conan muttered tucking the card into the breast pocket of his pajamas, turning back to Heiji and Hakuba.

"If you're so innocent, why did ya block me from reaching him over the phone! I've been trying ta reach Kudo since yesterday!" Heiji yelled. "And who the hell is he?!" he finished pointing at the only other figure in the room crouched down by the bed with his back to them. Kaito tensed on reflex realizing he was under scrutiny.

"The wanted criminal," Hakuba muttered crossing his arms over his chest. "Like I said, I warned Kudo that no good would come of associating with him," he finished with a very I-told-you-so tone.

"Thanks a bunch, Hakuba," Kaito muttered under his breath.

"And who's…" Heiji stopped, paling visibly under his tan skin. "W-Why are ya calling him that? Conan-kun's just a little kid," he laughed off shakily.

"I already know. Everyone in this room knows. And for the record, you've already called him that too," Hakuba pointed out.

"What?!" Heiji exclaimed, his voice leaving him in a tight squeak. Kaito stood up guiltily knowing that Hakuba's inclusion in that knowledge was completely his fault. As soon as he turned around, Heiji's eyes went wide staring at the thief. "Kudo?!" Heiji shifted his gaze between the thief and the child in bed. "What's going on? Why are there two of you?"

"A little slow are we?" Hakuba murmured just loud enough for Heiji to hear and send him a murderous glare.

Kaito swallowed hard realizing he was surrounded on all sides by detectives. Detectives quite committed to locking him behind bars, two of which were very angry. And the only one likely to defend him couldn't even stand up on his own yet. "Umm… Hi," he mumbled reaching out to shake Heiji's hand which the Kansai detective gladly took with a final glare sent Hakuba's way. "I'm…

"Kaitou Kid," Conan finished for him, appreciating the gobsmacked expression on Heiji's face.

"You?!" Heiji asked in a stunned voice. "You're really Kid?!" Kaito nodded back hesitantly with a very guarded expression, especially considering Heiji had yet to let go of his hand and he wasn't sure he'd be able to break the kendo expert's firm grip.

"Hattori… it's fine," Conan broke in from the bed rubbing a hand over his chest and the tight bandaging under his pajamas. "He knows… about them. He's helping… investigate," Conan gasped out.

"How did you get involved?" Heiji asked letting go once he had Conan's assurance.

"They murdered my father," Kaito answered back unflinchingly. "About ten years ago. And I just found out Kudo knew about them. It was the first lead I'd had in a year. Kudo let me in on his investigation."

Heiji exchanged a look with Conan for confirmation. "He's been following… one of their… side projects," Conan rasped uncomfortably, dissolving into a bout of coughing at the end.

"Are you still feeling ill?" Hakuba asked, claiming Kaito's desk chair. Kaito looked at him oddly.

"No… it's from… the smoke," Conan replied, his gasping near hyperventilating after his coughing fit.

"You're still feeling sick Kudo?" Heiji asked, reaching a hand out to check his forehead.

"I'm fine," he muttered testily, knocking Heiji's hand away.

Heiji caught his hand and Conan winced at the pressure on his burns. "You're fine?! Right," he muttered letting go of the hand wrapped in gauze and bandages.

"Ran-san stayed home to look after him most of last week," Hakuba informed the curious thief.

"You knew?" Conan asked curiously.

"I spoke with Ran-san a few days ago. She's very loyal to you by the way," he stated, amused at the light flush in Conan's cheeks. "But are you sure you're recovered? It must have been bad, you were out of school for around four days."

"Were you… stalking me?" Conan murmured in a quiet voice.

"Is that where you've been all week?" Kaito asked in surprise.

Conan met his eyes looking, dare he say, apologetic. "Ran wouldn't leave… me alone long enough… to send you a message. And then you tried… to catch them… by yourself… with incomplete data."

"And I almost got you killed," Kaito muttered with a heavy sigh.

Heiji gave the depressed thief a long look before plopping down on the bed, sitting near Conan's feet. "Ya don't have to worry about that," he said with a grin. "He finds those kinds of situations all by himself. In the time I've known him he's fallen down a flight of stairs, been stabbed in the chest, shot in the stomach, kidnapped by an agent of the Black Organization, broken his leg, and been stalked by an obsessed killer. And those were just the times I know of 'cause I was there."

"Hattori!" Conan whined, "You make me… sound accident prone!"

"You are accident prone," Heiji retorted easily.

Kaito cracked a grin at the Osakan detective's easy manner. "I'll go get a glass of water for you," he said to the injured boy, "And when I get back you're going to answer every question I have." Conan gave him a faint smile and nodded. Kaito left them in the room, closing the door behind him.

"I have some questions for you, too," Hakuba said from Kaito's desk. "He said these people have infiltrated the police. I'd like to know exactly what kind of proof you have of that."

"Fine," Conan mumbled.

"Kudo, are you sure about this? Working with Kaitou Kid of all people!?" Heiji asked cautiously, watching Hakuba carefully.

Conan gave a light grin. "He's been… working this case… even longer… than I have. Besides, it's safer… this way."

Heiji gave him a nod over a serious frown. "If you say so, then fine," he said finally giving his friend a careful look over. "You're pretty banged up, eh Kudo? Anything serious?"

"Not really," Conan muttered. "When I was five… I was in the car… when my mother… had an accident… on the freeway. I feel… kind of like… that time."

"Yes, he looks great for someone who had a ceiling fall on him," Kaito muttered, handing him a glass with a bendy straw and pulling up the chair from earlier so Conan would have a place to set his drink. "But he probably wouldn't have survived the backdraft without the cover. He was completely buried except for a bit of his shoe." Kaito then took the dustpan he had tucked under his arm and the broom he'd brought with him and held them out to Heiji. "It's a pleasure meeting you tantei-san, now please clean up the mess you made of my window."

"Ahh… right. Sorry about that," Heiji said, ducking his head in embarrassment, accepting the broom and pushing himself up from the bed to clean up the broken glass. "I thought someone had kidnapped him and had him locked up," he admitted sheepishly. "So I guess it was true that Kid… uh you… were at the scene of that fire."

"What do you mean?" Kaito asked in confusion, "You already knew I was there?"

"It was on one of the news station's websites. A guard from the embassy said he saw your glider leaving the scene," Heiji answered. "But no other station ran his comment, I don't think anyone believed him."

"Either way… they probably know… you were there now," Conan said. "No more heists… for a while."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Kaito muttered dropping to the floor on top of his futon. "I guess I'll start where we left off when we talked on your roof. You said they used code names for their assassins, how many are we talking about?"

Conan took a deep breath to get out as many words as he could with his restricted breathing. "I've got this Kudo," Heiji said dumping the glass in his dustpan in Kaito's trashcan and setting the pan and broom against a wall. "I know it's hard for you to talk right now." Conan nodded, happily passing the floor over to Heiji. "The ones who did this to him were Gin and Vodka. There's also Chianti and Korn."

"They're partners," Conan cut in.

"Kir, who's actually that news reporter, Mizunashi Rena," Heiji continued, ignoring the stunned looks passing between Kaito and Hakuba. "But she's a special case," he paused seeing Conan shake his head. "We can't read ya in until we get an okay on that one," he said nodding back to Conan that he understood his intent. "There's Vermouth."

"Their disguise… expert," Conan added.

"The one you told me about?" Kaito asked him carefully. Conan nodded, taking another drink of water.

"They had an agent disguised as Superintendent Matsumoto at the tower but they killed him," Heiji muttered with a deep frown. He couldn't help but let his eyes drift to Conan while his memory replayed the assassin's brutal attack on the kid, his memory replaying the shot of Conan being shot in the stomach over and over again.

"They what?!" Hakuba exclaimed in disbelief.

"Irish," Conan spoke up, supplying the name. "He held…Matsumoto-keishi…captive for a week."

"Kidnapping and replacing someone that high on the chain for so long is incredible?!" Hakuba exclaimed. "Why haven't I seen so much as an email about it? There's absolutely no paperwork in the system about it!"

Conan raised an eyebrow at the news. "There's a cover-up… in the works. I heard… from Sato-keiji."

"I suppose that would make for bad press," Hakuba muttered, "but burying something like that is a bit much." He made a mental note to ask his father about it, if he actually had time between appointments and business calls.

"And there's Sherry," Heiji finished. "She's another special case. She defected and joined our side."

"You've been working with one of their people?!" Kaito exclaimed, pinning Conan with a sharp look.

"You've… met her," Conan muttered.

"She took the same poison Kudo did," Heiji explained. "Calls herself Haibara Ai now."

"Her?! That serious girl is an agent?!" Kaito exclaimed with a shiver at the thought he'd been so close to an organization member without knowing.

"Ah, she's the one that made that stupid ahotoxin," Heiji replied, oblivious of Kaito's mood.

"Apotoxin. Apotoxin," Conan corrected in a cross voice. "Speak Japanese."

"I'll call it what I like," Heiji shot back, waving off Conan's comments. "Anyway, that's the ones we know of but it's probably just the tip of the iceberg."

"So you're harboring and working with one of their agents who helped in almost killing you?!" Kaito asked in a dark voice. Hakuba looked at him in surprise at the brimming anger in the thief's voice.

Conan held Kaito's accusing glare evenly. "I understand," he finally said shifting his focus up to the ceiling. "And I was… angry in the… beginning too. But she didn't… have a choice… about joining, they raised her… and she's suffered… losses too."

"Oh, really! Did they kill her father too?!" Kaito asked heatedly.

"Yeah, they did," Heiji answered before Conan could say anything, reclaiming his earlier seat on the bed. "Along with her mother and sister." Kaito backed down, but not without a firm arm-crossed pout.

'I guess I'll wait to tell him I want him to work with Haibara on the Pandora investigation,' Conan thought to himself.

"How far have they infiltrated the Tokyo police if they were able to abduct Matsumoto-keishi?" Hakuba asked when it didn't look like Kaito was going to continue his questioning.

"Not sure," Conan muttered.

"They stole a bunch of reports for cases Mouri-han worked on a while back and returned 'em a few days later," Heiji answered, eyeing the way Conan kept rubbing a hand over his chest.

"They accessed police archives?!" Hakuba exclaimed sharply. "That place has security cameras everywhere!"

"No," Conan answered around a wince at his sore ribs. "Just what they could… find at the Beika station."

"Hey you two, enough questions for now," Heiji said firmly. "Ya've talked enough," he said to the boy who gave him an annoyed look. "It's taking ya longer and longer to catch your breath each time ya talk to them." Conan rolled his eyes again but didn't argue.

Kaito looked up from his pout at Conan, taking in the increased speed of his tight breathing. "I didn't even notice. I'm sorry about tha…"

"It's fine…" Conan muttered, waving him off. "Just need… a break." He shot Heiji another annoyed look for pointing out the weakness. The Osakan just grinned brightly back, ignoring the shrunken detective's grouchy mood completely.

"Do ya have some cardboard and duct tape so I can cover that hole I made?" Heiji asked with an embarrassed blush pointing at the broken pane over the window's lock.

"Yeah, we've got some downstairs," Kaito said, pushing off the floor and making his way over the scattered mess to the door.

"Again, I'm really sorry," Heiji pleaded again, following after him.

"Don't worry, I don't blame you at all," Kaito said with a backward glance over his shoulder to the child in his bed. "You thought he was in trouble. I'm starting to think it happens a lot," he said with an exasperated sigh.

"That's right, you've been through some of it before too," Heiji said with a laugh following after him into the hall. Stuck in bed, it was Conan's turn to pout. "Say, I don't even know your name yet," Heiji's loud energetic voice reached them from down the hall.

"Kaito. Kuroba Kaito…" the thief's voice said faintly.

Finally supplied with a name, Conan grabbed his phone, searching online for an address. Finding it, he quickly included the information on a text to Jodie. Message sent, Conan's eyebrows knit together running the name through his mind. 'Where have I heard that name before?' He gave an aggravated huff at his sluggish memory and reached up to rest his hands behind his head. An action that ended with cursed words and much wincing.

"Are you still in a great deal of pain?" Hakuba asked, leaving his chair to give Conan a closer once over.

"It's better… than yesterday," Conan muttered around the pain.

"And not a real answer," Hakuba pointed out, opening a drawer of Kaito's nightstand and rummaging through it.

"What are…" Conan stopped hearing the triumphant sound the blonde detective made, pulling a small white medicine bottle from the drawer.

"You and I both know what kind of messes he gets in during his heists," Hakuba said reading the directions on the back for child dosages. "Are you really surprised?" Conan stayed quiet, silently agreeing with him with a sage nod of his own. "Are you allergic to ibuprofen?" Conan shook his head lightly and held his hand out for the pill Hakuba handed him, swallowing it down with the water Kaito brought him earlier. Hakuba set the bottle on the nightstand and pulled Kaito's desk chair closer while he waited. "I suppose I should be arresting you," he muttered watching Conan's expression closely. Conan looked at Hakuba in confusion. "I doubt you had a warrant to retrieve that hard drive and Kuroba did fly you to his house." Conan gave an exasperated sigh as his words of a week ago came back to him. "Don't worry, I have no plans to do so currently… Kudo-kun."

Conan gave him a light glare realizing he was being teased. "I'd appreciate it… if you not… get used to… that name. I already have… them to deal with," he ground out with a nod to the door.

Hakuba gave him an understanding nod. "You would both be killed if anyone found out you were involved in that fire, Kuroba already explained everything to me, including his reasons for being involved," he said settling into a more somber mood. "Still, you went to that twit of a detective for help on all this?" he asked incredulously. "I'm surprised these people haven't found you already."

Conan gave a self-amused smirk at Hakuba's assessment of Heiji. "He… found me out," he wheezed out, "second time… we met."

Hakuba's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline at that. He sat silently for a while processing that bit of data. "Did it ever occur to you that there were plenty of people around you, police even, that would have helped you if you had explained the whole story to them?" he finally asked.

"Too dangerous…" Conan muttered.

"I think you have a bad habit of taking on too much by yourself," Hakuba mused with a sigh. Conan heaved an especially annoyed sigh at him and looked away pointedly. Hakuba bit back a grin at the childish behavior coming from the 'child.' He pushed his chair back, away from the boy hearing Heiji's loud voice calling Conan's name rushing down the hall.

"Kudo! Why didn't you tell me ya got one of their computers?!" Heiji demanded from the doorway. Behind him, Kaito caught up, roll of tape in hand and breathing hard. "That should'a been the first thing you told me!" he said stalking up to Conan. "We've got proof of what they've been up to and you're just letting it lie around?!"

Hakuba gave Kaito a sideways glance where he was leaning against the door. "What's wrong, I thought you were supposed to be some super athlete with that night job of yours."

"He scared me!" Kaito replied, tossing Hakuba his roll of tape. "And he's really fast!"

Hakuba rolled his eyes at the thief and stepped around the Osakan still hell bent on his rant to Conan, ignoring them both, and taped a few layers of duct tape over the broken pane. "You may as well go get the hard drive and bring it here or he won't shut up," he said to Kaito still in the doorway. Kaito turned around and disappeared downstairs.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Heiji growled. Hakuba neatly ignored him, checking his watch and walking out after Kaito leaving the detective of the west sputtering angrily behind him.

"Where're you going?" Kaito asked, shutting the door to the hidden workroom with a foot while his hands were full with the coat-wrapped drive.

"You only have a laptop in your room. What are you going to plug that into?"

"I've got everything I need in there," Kaito said, gesturing to the giant portrait behind him with his head.

"You know how to slave a drive?" Hakuba asked.

"I know what I'm doing," Kaito muttered, brushing past him.

"Fine, then while you set things up I'll go buy something for us to eat," Hakuba said continuing down the stairs to the front door.

"Huh?"

"It's 12:45. If we were still at school, we'd be at lunch right now," Hakuba replied over his shoulder, leaving by the front door.

"Oh, right. I forgot about that," Kaito mused to himself with a shrug and continued on his way upstairs.

Hakuba returned to a smattering of curses coming from Kaito's room, specifically from the thief himself. Spying Heiji pacing in the living room and talking low on his phone, he caught the Kansai detective's eye. He left a bento for him on the coffee table and left following the sounds of someone very upset with their computer. Upon entering the room, he dumped the plastic convenience store bag full of bento's in Conan's lap, bending hands on knees to look over Kaito's shoulder to where he had set up two computer towers and a monitor on the floor in his increasingly cluttered room. "Figures. You're running Windows?"

"No one asked you!" Kaito growled back, pulling up the task manager and reading the list of 'not responding' applications. "No. No, no, no, no! Don't! Why are you closing?! I'm not even using you!" he pleaded with the computer to no avail as everything on his monitor disappeared save a window informing him 'explorer.exe' needed to shut down and he had to wait for his desktop to reload. "You bitch! Why do you hate me today!" he wailed, ignoring the other two in the room lost in his private conversation with his computer.

"How long has he been trying to crack the drive?" Hakuba asked the boy watching from the bed behind them.

"Only… fifteen minutes," Conan said with a wide and very entertained grin.

"Never was very patient was he," Hakuba muttered.

"It's amusing. I've never… actually heard him… curse this much. Even when I… almost set him… on fire," Conan replied between gasps.

Hakuba raised an eyebrow at that, making a mental note to question the thief about it later. He looked over the first tower, raising an eyebrow at the sleek machine, aglow with a soft blue light from the cooling system visible through the clear side.

"How did you afford an alienware?" he asked, giving the machine an appreciative once-over.

"I bought it," Kaito ground out through clenched teeth as the center of his screen was once more attacked with a warning window and loud beep. "I can go five minutes without stealing something, you know."

Hakuba gave him a curious studied look with a faint smirk. "That's not what I meant," he muttered, rolling his eyes at the touchy thief. He looked at the other much older second-hand tower. "You put the drive in that one and you're slaving in?"

"That was the idea. I'm not putting one of their things anywhere near my baby," Kaito replied reaching out and patting the newer tower like a treasured pet. He threw his hands up under a new wave of cursing at yet another warning window. "Damn it! This should be working!" he whined in frustration.

"Is the drive too damaged?" Hakuba asked reaching forward to show the details on the warning window.

"I just can't get it to read," Kaito groused.

Hakuba leaned over the frustrated thief's shoulder and skimmed through the coding. "Are you an idiot? I thought you were smarter than this," he muttered in the irritating smugness of one who'd already solved the puzzle before anyone else.

"Either spit it out or go away," Kaito muttered staring at his command prompt.

Hakuba leaned down to the screen's level next to Kaito. "Your hard drive is formatted for Unix, not Windows genius," he said with a cheeky grin. From the bed, Conan muffled a snicker.

Kaito gave a low growl and shoved the keyboard away. "Damn it, I hate dealing with stupid Linux!" he groused, rolling backwards onto the floor to lay on his back in one fluid move.

"Too intellectual for you?" Hakuba asked serenely. Conan was chuckling quietly to himself.

"If you must know, most of the systems I've had the pleasure of cracking in the past run Windows like everyone else in the world," Kaito muttered in a definite pout.

"Well you're never going to read this drive at the rate you're going," Hakuba mused. He sat back on his heels checking his watch again. "I have to work at my father's office today. I promised to help file after class. After work, I'll bring my system and then we should finally be able to see what's on that drive."

"Great. Fine. I quit," Kaito muttered shutting down his computer and pulling the bag from Conan's side where the boy had shoved the extra bentos. He pulled out the small plastic covered box, the last one left and obviously his, glaring at Hakuba. "This is a kid's bento," he griped giving the blonde a murderous look.

"It's the only one they had without fish. Deal with it," Hakuba shot back, settling into his own meal. Conan gave them both an odd look and geared himself to ask as he rethought last night's conversation between Kaito and Aoko when the door swung open.

"Did he get in?" Heiji asked, pushing through the door, bento in hand and claiming a spot on the floor to continue eating. Across from him Kaito groaned and stabbed at his bento's omelet angrily.

"No." Came the combined reply from Conan and Hakuba.

"Who were you speaking with?" Hakuba asked in mild curiosity.

"…uh… Ah! J-Just letting my dad know I was here," he replied shakily before he made answering further questions impossible by making sure his mouth was too busy shoveling more food in it. Hakuba raised an eyebrow at the over-obvious behavior. He cautioned a look at Conan on the bed. The boy detective was watching Heiji suspiciously but didn't say anything. He was trying to decide if he should say something to call the Osakan on his flimsy excuse when they all heard the loud squeal of breaking tires uncomfortably close by.

"Did that sound close 'cause I broke your window or is your mom home?" Heiji asked in a tense voice that was trying its hardest to sound light.

"My mother's in Paris. She won't be back for another week," Kaito answered in a low voice, slowly lowering his bento to the floor. He turned sharply on Hakuba next to him. "Did you lock the door when you came in?" he asked in a tight voice.

"…No," Hakuba muttered paling under Kaito's angry glare. Not waiting a second longer, Kaito shot out the door in a fluid motion taking a running jump from the hallway landing covering the stairs from top to bottom in a single leap and tucking roll, absorbing the impact from his bare feet. From the commotion in the hallway above him, he guessed Hakuba and the detective of the west were following after him. Not waiting, he dashed for the door. His hand had just grabbed the deadbolt's turn-latch when the doorbell sounded and he stilled, hand frozen, knowing whoever was on the other side of the door would hear him if he locked the door confirming that someone was in the house. He took a quick peek through the peephole. On his front step, a foreign-looking blonde woman stood looking down at what he could barely make out was her cell phone. He tried to get a look at what she had been driving but her body blocked his view of the driveway. Making a quick decision and hoping he wouldn't regret it, he dropped his grip on the lock and opened the door.

"Excuse me," the blonde woman with the most amazingly bad Japanese accent he had ever heard in his life said with a happy smile. "Is this the house of Kuroba Kaito-kun?"

"Uh… yes?" he replied cautiously, eyeing the beige coat and red sweater she was wearing which were definitely not black. "Can I help you?" he asked politely.

"Jodie Starling, FBI," she said holding up her badge and identification for him to read. Her coat swayed open slightly after she had pulled the i.d. from her breast pocket and he spied her side arm securely in its shoulder holster under her coat.

"FBI?" Kaito squeaked staring at the badge. He raked his memory trying to come up with some instance in which he could have possibly pissed off the American government. He was fairly sure he hadn't so maybe his father had. But it didn't matter because there was no way he could escape the agent standing in front of him in his school uniform without a single smoke bomb or flash grenade on his person. He was caught. For the first time in his life, Kaito felt his legs turn to jelly and drop him unceremoniously on the entryway floor.

"Oh my," the atrocious accent continued. "Are you alright?" the woman asked. Still stunned speechless, Kaito nodded mechanically. "I came here to see Conan-kun. Is he here?" she asked politely.

Kaito pointed to the ceiling over his head. "Upstairs," he answered softly.

"Thank you," the woman smiled. "Pardon my intrusion," she said as she blithely stepped around him and walked into his living room.

From behind him, Kaito watched Hakuba and Heiji come down the stairs, cautiously looking to see who was at the door. "Ah! Jodie-sensei!" Hattori greeted happily. "'What are you doing here?'" he continued in almost perfect unaccented English. Next to him, Hakuba gaped at the Osakan.

"'I'm here to see Conan-kun. He asked me to come by,'" she grinned up at him, switching to English herself.

"'Sure. Follow me,'" he grinned heading back up the stairs. Jodie followed after him giving Hakuba and Kaito a friendly nod as she walked past. "'I'm afraid he's stuck in bed or he would have come down to greet…'" Heiji's voice was lost after he rounded a corner upstairs leaving the detective and thief behind on the first floor.

"…Hakuba?" Kaito finally asked from the floor of the open doorway. "Are we in the twilight zone?"

Hakuba blinked several times, finally looking away from the hallway the two had disappeared down. "Yes. I do believe we are," he answered with finality. He walked up to the thief and offered him an arm up… which Kaito gladly took and closed the door tight, locking it.

Together, they walked up the stairs after Heiji. Hakuba gave Kaito a withering glare but said nothing as the thief pushed him ahead and hid himself as best he could behind the detective as they crept up to his bedroom door. He was forced to stop at the doorframe when Kaito dug in his heels. Through the cracked door they could just make out Heiji readjusting the mess of pillows behind Conan so the injured boy could sit-up straighter. "What's wrong?" Hakuba hissed in a stage whisper.

"The FBI is in my room!" Kaito hissed back unwilling to advance another step. Hakuba gave a low growl of aggravation and reached back to grab a handful of Kaito's school uniform and shoved him forward through the door. Jodie, Heiji, and Conan looked up in time to see Kaito tumble to the floor in the doorway while Hakuba stepped over him and gave his uniform a prim tug to straighten any wrinkles. Kaito scrambled to his feet and glared at the blonde but didn't leave the doorway to his room his body tensed and coiled ready to bolt.

"This is… Hakuba Saguru… and I guess you… met Kuroba… at the door," Conan mumbled around his laughter at the thief, which was short lived and quickly turned to a gasping hiss of pain but didn't stop Kaito from shifting his glare from Hakuba to Conan.

"Ah! I see," Jodie replied in the garbled Japanese she had spoken at the door. "It's nice to meet you," she said to the blonde who had commandeered the desk chair and the other boy who was shyly hanging in the doorway.

"Jodie-han," Heiji spoke up softly, "It's okay. These two know about 'them'."

"I need them… read in," Conan added seriously, shifting his attention to the woman and completely ignoring Kaito who was glaring holes in the back of his head. "They've both become… involved. But I'll get back… to that later." He carefully shifted trying to find a more comfortable position for the sore muscles in his neck. "Have you already moved… on the favor I asked you?"

Jodie gave one last pensive look at the two newcomers and softly cleared her throat. "I've assigned tails to the two detectives like you asked but there may be a problem," she said, her earlier accented Japanese gone in place of perfect unaccented Japanese. Both Hakuba and Kaito stared at her wide-eyed, which she ignored in place of sitting at the edge of the bed and digging through her bag. She passed a handful of pictures to the boy who started rifling through them with Heiji hanging over his shoulder.

"We've spotted this woman coming and going from Detective Takagi's apartment. She always wears sunglasses and concealing clothing so we've been unable to i.d. her. She's been using public transit only and paying cash. We've tracked her to several government buildings within Minato," she said seriously.

Hakuba rolled the chair next to Heiji and studied the pictures closely. From the doorway, Kaito craned his neck to see but stubbornly refused to leave his spot.

Conan smiled at the pictures and handed them back. "It's okay… Jodie-sensei. She's a detective… from Nagano. If she's here… then she and her partner… must be working with… Takagi-keiji and Sato-keiji," he replied.

"Should I put them on surveillance only?" Jodie asked, tucking the photos back in her bag.

"For now," Conan sighed. "From what she… told me… Takagi-keiji and Sato-keiji… might come under… their attack. If it happens… I need your people… in place to extract them." At the door, Kaito tensed, eyes wide in astonishment at the implication behind Conan's words, watching the FBI woman and the Kansai detective blithely accept hearing Conan was in touch with one of the Black Organization's agents. His fingers dug into the wood of the doorway while he hesitated over asking.

"Do they know?" Hattori asked Conan, quietly serious.

Conan shook his head carefully, "Not yet. I'll need to… get in touch… with them soon. I still don't know… how much they know… or how deep they've gone," he muttered with a sigh of frustration.

"Who's 'she'?" Hakuba asked suddenly. From the doorway, Kaito trained his focus on Conan.

"Vermouth, code name 'Rotten Apple'," Jodie replied with a sigh. "One of their top assassins and master of disguise. There's only a handful of people who know what she truly looks like. Two are dead… and three are in this room."

"The one you told us about earlier? She spoke with you? Just offered the information that these detectives were in trouble?" Hakuba asked skeptically.

"Yeah, she always does things like that," Heiji piped up. "She likes him," he said giving Conan a good cheek pinching, which he angrily slapped away. "I don't get it either."

"Can we talk… about that later?" Conan muttered, rubbing his sore cheek and shooting Heiji an angry glare.

Jodie cleared her throat conspicuously. "You said you needed to speak to me in person about something sensitive?" she said to the small boy.

Conan gave a nod and looked over to Kaito still hovering in the doorway. "Hattori… can you and Hakuba… wait outside?" he asked quietly.

Heiji held Conan's gaze reading the serious look in his eyes. "Okay," he said softly. He walked over to Hakuba and plucked at his shoulder. "Come on," he muttered standing aside and waiting for Hakuba to stand up. Hakuba gave Kaito a questioning look who looked terrified at the thought of being left alone with the FBI agent and kept shifting his vision between the woman and Conan. He followed Hattori out into the hall where the Osakan gave Kaito a firm shove, pushing him into the bedroom, and closed the door behind him.

"Guess we wait," Heiji sighed settling himself on the floor opposite the door. Hakuba leaned against the wall next to him and crossed his arms over his chest, ready to wait patiently.

Kaito whirled on Heiji only to find himself facing a closed door. Left alone with the FBI agent sitting on his bed… and Kudo, he slowly turned around trying very hard not to cringe. From the bed, Conan pointed to the chair Hakuba had recently vacated and Kaito sat down gingerly, ready to jump up again at the first sight of handcuffs.

Conan rolled his eyes at Kaito's tense posture and turned back to Jodie who was quietly watching them with a hand over her mouth hiding her grin. "Jodie-sensei… may I present… Phantom Thief 1412," Conan said grandly with a wave of his arm to Kaito. Jodie's eyes went wide staring at the pale teenage boy gripping his knees tightly but holding her gaze steadily.

"You?!" she asked quietly, staring at Kaito. Kaito gave a tight nod.

"He's going to be… both an informant… and a witness… against the organization," Conan said. "I need him… pardoned. Can you… do it?" he asked drawing Jodie's attention back.

Next to him, Kaito gaped at Conan. "You mean it?" he asked incredulously, grabbing onto Conan's shoulder. Conan flashed him that arrogant snarky grin he knew so well.

"I know…" Jodie replied, her eyes sliding back to the teenager. "I mean… Kuroba, of course. I… yes, I can do it."

Both Conan and Kaito stared at her stammering fit. "Jodie-sensei?" Conan ventured carefully.

"Your father… was he Toichi-san?" Jodie asked hesitantly. Conan's eyes widened in recognition of the name, turning to Kaito for confirmation.

"…Yes," Kaito answered leaning forward. "Do… Did you know my dad?"

"No. No, it was before my time." Jodie kept staring at Kaito, her gaze looking him up and down. "But I know someone who would want to meet you," she said seriously. "Is it alright if I bring someone here?" she asked looking back and forth between the two boys. Conan looked over at Kaito and Kaito caught the hint. It was his choice. Slowly, he gave Jodie a cautious nod.

"Okay," she said with a quiet smile. "I'll be back tomorrow with paperwork you'll need to sign," she told Kaito.

"Do you need any details about what I know?" Kaito asked hesitantly.

"I think I have a good idea," she smiled graciously at the nervous boy. She stood up and slung her purse over a shoulder while holding out a hand to Kaito; he quickly reached out to shake her offered hand. "'Cool Kid' already gave me your phone number and I'll be bringing James with me tomorrow. We can talk about everything then, okay?" For the first time since she had arrived, Kaito gave a slight smile to the cheery woman. "Was there anything else we needed to talk about?" she asked Conan.

"It can wait… for tomorrow," Conan grinned. "Thank you," he said with a meaningful emphasis and gestured with his head toward Kaito.

Heiji and Hakuba looked up at the door opening and Jodie gave them both a friendly smile. Hakuba instantly looked past her at Kaito sitting in the desk chair slumped forward with his face buried in his hands. Once he heard Heiji offer to walk the FBI woman to the door, he slipped back into the room where Kaito was speaking with Conan in a low voice.

"Kuroba, is everything alright?" he asked interrupting whatever quiet conversation the two were having.

Kaito flashed him an easy grin. "Yeah, everything is fine," he said happily. "Everything is great." He gave Hakuba a happy clap on the shoulder and left the room leaving the two detectives alone. Hakuba directed his questioning look at Conan. Conan gave him a tired grin.

"As of tomorrow… Kaitou Kid will be a… federal witness against the… Black Organization and under… FBI protection," Conan told him in a tired but very satisfied voice. "I'm sorry… but neither of us… will be arresting him… any time soon." Hakuba absorbed the information quietly.

"And you're going to be satisfied with that, Kudo-kun?" Hakuba asked simply.

"Yes. I am," Conan muttered between gritted teeth while he readjusted himself higher on the pillows having slumped down into an uncomfortable position. "Once the organization… is taken down… and the side project of theirs… Kuroba will be informing on… is taken care of… there won't be… a need for Kaitou Kid. His father's killers… will be in jail… and he can have… his life back."

Hakuba reached down and quietly helped him fix his position. Grabbing the bottle of ibuprofen from Kaito's nightstand, he handed Conan a pill and his glass of water and waited for Conan to swallow the pill. He sat down on the chair and waited for Conan to continue.

"…Knowing everything… I do now," Conan continued. "I can't say… I wouldn't have been tempted… to do the same thing… or something similar… to find who had… killed one of my parents… or Ran. He used the only… opportunity open to him… to find his father's killers… and bring them to justice… and did his very best… to make sure no one else… was hurt in the process. He shouldn't have to… lose everything for that."

"He still committed many crimes," Hakuba replied.

"I know," Conan said. "I'm sure it won't be… a smooth ride for him. It's up to the bureau now… to see how much… they can do for him… or if he'll get… a full pardon. I guess we'll… find out tomorrow," he said with a tired smile. Hakuba gave him a nod and sat back in the chair quietly letting the exhausted boy rest.

Balancing the tall stack of cardboard file boxes, Hakuba pushed the heavy door to Archives open with his back.

"Su-chan, helping your father again?" a young woman called out from behind the information desk. She hurriedly turned the volume down on the small television keeping her company behind the counter. "What've you got for me today?"

"Yasue-san," Hakuba nodded standing on tip-toe to rest the heavy boxes on the high counter. "I really wish you wouldn't call me that."

"And miss out on embarrassing you? Never!" the jovial clerk grinned leaning over the counter to muss his hair. Hakuba swatted her hand away with a practiced hand. Sitting back in her chair, she pulled a pen from the coffee mug full of pencils and pens on the bookshelf behind her. "You know the drill," she muttered handing him the pen.

Hakuba pulled the clipboard on the counter closer and quickly signed in.

"Just leave 'em on the table over there," she sighed looking back to her soap opera.

"That's all right. I'll file them myself," Hakuba muttered, hefting the stack of boxes off the counter.

"You know civilians aren't allowed past…"

Hakuba balanced the boxes carefully and pulled out the long thin box of chocolate truffles from his jacket pocket and slid them across the counter to Yasue's waiting hands.

"Right. Have fun with that," she muttered tearing into the box. "Just be out of here before anyone sees you."

Hakuba gave a nod and left her to her soaps commandeering a book cart for his boxes and pushed into the aisles of steel shelving full of boxes labeled with case numbers. He pushed deep into the middle of Archives to his favorite table well out of Yasue's sight and started opening boxes. He sighed at the unorganized mess of documents his father had probably just chucked into boxes without rhyme or reason like he always did. With a long-suffering sigh, he started the long arduous task of sorting and skimming through police reports as he worked.

Hakuba pushed the sliding ladder into place and trudged up to pull down yet another box, one with a familiar case number, the archived files for the now infamous Touto Tower Disaster. Box in hand, he carried it to his table and the old computer he had been using to add files to the computerized index.

After logging the latest stack of processed paperwork, he opened the box to add files as he read through them, the last of the tower disaster paperwork still in circulation after his father's order to classify the case, a decision he certainly didn't agree with. And now armed with the inside knowledge about the case he had learned from Kuroba, he carefully read each witness statement, committing each to memory.

Near the middle of his stack of paperwork, he came across a hardcopy of an emailed memo. He had only to read the first couple of lines when he came to the realization he had read the memo before. Just to be sure, he read through the memo in its entirety. He frowned in puzzlement; he had already logged a copy of the memo last week, the memo ordering the Touto Disaster classified. Although the email he had logged before had been issued by his father and his father's office. The memo in his hands was signed and issued by the police superintendent's office, Matsumoto Kiyonaga. With a confused frown, he pulled the box of paperwork onto the chair next to him to look for the earlier memo, just to be sure.

Once he dug past the latest files he had just dropped into the box, he was met with the old police reports he had logged over a week ago written within hours of the helicopter attack. Each report was filled with line after line of solid black lines, obscuring any vital information the paperwork might have had, blackout lines that hadn't been there when he had read and filed them. The cursory report on the remains of the helicopter was completely blacked out. With a chill running up his back, he started rifling through papers looking for the original memo. When he finally hit the cardboard bottom of the box, it was clear the page was missing.

The silence of the large subbasement suddenly felt very unnerving and Hakuba caught himself looking around to make sure he was alone. Convinced Yasue was still engrossed in her soap opera at the archives' entrance, he slipped back to the computer and searched his memory for the original memo's serial number. A quick search on the computer came up with the flat response of 'no such file.' Confused and more than a little creeped out, he wandered back to the box of censored reports and the stack of unread paperwork on the table. No doubt, the new paperwork would be censored by someone soon.

With another quick glance around to make sure he was alone and knowing full well he couldn't escape the security cameras high above him on the ceiling, Hakuba made a quick decision and dug out all the new paperwork he had just filed from the box. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he took to using his camera function and carefully documenting each report and memo into his phone's memory. His eyes widened as he came across another memo ordering the helicopter remains be moved from evidence to a private investigation company he had never heard of being quite familiar with all the outside agencies the Tokyo police department used. Again, another memo sent from the superintendent's office. He made sure to get a clear picture of the company's address.

"Are you just about done in there, Hakuba-kun?" Yasue called from somewhere down one of the archive's aisles and getting closer. Startled, Hakuba quickly dumped the paperwork into and shut the box and hurriedly placed it back on its shelf.

"…yes… Yes, I'm finished," he called back in what he hoped was a steady voice. He darted to the computer and hurriedly set it back to its generic search screen and had just enough time to put distance between himself and the device when Yasue started down his aisle.

"You were taking longer than usual," Yasue said with a cheery smile, "You weren't reading those files were you? You know those files are for government employee eyes only. Civilians aren't meant to read those, unless you're packing Godiva somewhere on you."

"Oh, I know, I know," Hakuba replied busying himself with stacking his now empty boxes. "…um… my father just… sent more to be archived than usual," he said, avoiding looking directly at Yasue. Unfamiliar with lying, he prayed he wasn't betraying anything on his face. "He… had a lot more that was almost ready for archiving so I'll probably see you tomorrow, Yasue-san."

Yasue eyed him oddly. "That father of yours is such a workaholic," she finally said with a dismissive smile. Hakuba flashed her a quick polite smile and beat a hasty retreat, carrying his load of empty boxes back up to his father's office. As soon as the doors to Archives swung shut, Yasue moved to the nearby computer and typed in the admin login. A few quick commands and a list of the most recent searches was pulled up. Yasue pulled up the command prompt and deleted the record of Hakuba's search. Deed done, Yasue pulled out her cell phone.

"Hey, wake up already!"

Conan woke up to Kaito gently shaking his shoulder. "What?" he mumbled blearily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He blinked in surprise, staring at the late evening sky through Kaito's window.

"You passed out after that FBI agent left," Kaito explained, wedging an arm under him and repositioning him flat on the bed. "Think you can manage a pillow this time?" With Conan's nod, he lifted the boy just high enough to get a pillow under him. "It looks like it hurt less this time. Are you feeling better?"

Conan blinked several times mulling it over for the first time that day. "Actually, I do feel a lot better," he said with a relieved grin.

"Talking doesn't bother you anymore?" Kaito asked in surprise.

Conan narrowed his eyes in concentration, studying his own breathing pattern. "It's easier to breathe lying straight like this. What time is it? And where did Hattori and Hakuba go?"

"It's almost seven. Hakuba left for work hours ago and Hattori left to get his things, from that inventor friend of yours house I think," Kaito answered picking up what little trash from their lunch had been left behind to throw away downstairs and picking up the occasional bit of dirty laundry with his toes and flinging it into his closet.

"Hattori, huh?" Conan mused. "Sounds like you're getting along."

"He's a pretty laid-back guy," Kaito replied, grabbing Conan's empty glass. "But he was really worried about you 'cause of that fire so try to lighten up and not to be so grouchy, 'kay?" Conan crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. "I'll be back with more water."

Conan watched him go, leaving the door open behind him and the faint sound of conversation. He strained his ears trying to make out who Kaito was speaking with but the voice was just too faint. "Is someone here?" he asked when Kaito came back through the door.

"Yeah, for you actually," Kaito muttered with heavy mock sigh, setting the glass on the chair again. "She even made me wake you up. Said you'd be awake all night if I didn't. He's all yours," he called into the hallway.

Aoko popped around the doorway and gave Conan a happy smile. "Conan-kun! You look so much better today!"

"Ah, A-Aoko-neechan," he stumbled as his face lit up in a bright red blush, his memory choosing that instant to assail him with images of his forced bath the night before. Behind her, Kaito was biting back his laughter at the boy's obvious discomfort as he leaned against the doorway.

"I brought my Detective Samonji season one," she said with excited cheer having finally found someone to fan girl with. "And this," she pulled her arm out from behind her back with the over-exaggerated flair of an adult trying to amuse and enthuse a small child, "…is Mr. Houdini," she said with the practiced ease of long-time use for the foreign name.

Conan gulped at the giant fluffy white teddy bear in a satiny black tux and tails that was almost as big as he, a small part of him wondering how she had actually hidden it behind her back, and looked up at Aoko's smiling face with a very amused Kaito just behind her. Swallowing his irritation at the thief watching him, and more than a few choice words, he looked up at Aoko all chipper joy and twinkling smiles. "Yay! Detective Samonji!" He held out his open arms to Aoko expectantly and she moved the teddy bear into his waiting embrace giggling at the way the bear seemed to swallow him up leaving only his happily closed eyes and a tuft of his hair visible. From the doorway, Kaito broke down into out right laughter and Conan hid a growl against the plush animal's chest.

"I'll start the first disc," Aoko grinned, pulling the first thin dvd case from the box and dumping the rest on Kaito's futon on the floor. "You may go. We don't need your kind here," she told Kaito in an imperious voice, grabbing a still snickering Kaito roughly by the arm and forcing him out into the hallway with a shove and mock kick at his ankles. "Go do your homework. I'll have to turn in your late work tomorrow if you're going to be busy babysitting again."

Kaito took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds to control the temptation to start laughing anew at the death glare Conan was sending him with what little ability he had to look at the thief over the teddy bear that was absolutely dwarfing him. He really needed a picture to remember this. "We're not doing our trig together?" he asked, genuinely surprised, once he had his laughter under control, at the break in their tradition.

"I already did my homework. It would have cut into our marathon time," she returned haughtily, sticking her tongue out at him playfully and grabbing hold of the doorknob.

"You're abandoning me for that katana-dork detective and a second-grader?!" he whined in exaggerated scandalized flare. "I never knew you were a shota-con!" he finished, leaning away with an overly dramatic arm over his eyes.

"Goodbye, Kaito!" she sang sweetly, sticking her tongue out at him again and shutting his door in his face.

"This is mutiny!" he yelled back against the shut door despite the fact that the corner of his mouth kept twitching upward. "It's my room!"

"You have four hours to finish six days of skipped classes. You better hurry," she called back through the door, still in her sing-songy voice. Somewhat muffled, he heard the start of her beloved show's theme song on his television set.

"Just one last thing," he called through the door, digging into his pocket for his cell phone and flipping it open.

"What already! Go away!" she yelled back.

Kaito quickly flung open the door and the room was lit with a sudden flash, Conan blinking hard and scrubbing his eyes with one arm while the other still hugged the massive teddy bear. "That," he said, giving Conan a wide impish grin and shut the door just as quickly before the shrunken detective could find something hard to throw at him.

"Are you okay?" Aoko asked, leaning against Kaito's bed on her knees watching Conan blink hard several times to encourage the color negative spots in his vision to go away. "That was mean of him, I know. Just say the word and he'll be ducking my mop."

"It's okay, Aoko-neechan," Conan chirped through gritted teeth while he entertained his murderous thoughts very very deep in the back of his mind. He tugged the surprisingly heavy bear as best he could off and next to him against the wall. "You named your bear after a magician? You didn't think the name was hard to say?"

"When we were little, Kaito used to go on and on about all the cool stuff Harry Houdini could do," Aoko answered making herself comfortable lying reversed on Kaito's futon on her stomach with his pillow tucked under her chest and socked feet swinging in the air to keep them off of the end of the bed Kaito's face would be lying in. "I used to tease him that he should marry him. Believe me, it was a very familiar name."

"But you named him that anyway?" Conan pressed genuinely curious.

"When we were eight, Kaito tried to 'levitate' me. I wound up in the hospital with a broken leg. He was so scared, he thought my dad was gonna put him in jail," she answered with a self-amused giggle. Conan watched her with a much more sober expression from his pillowed vantage on the bed. "He gave that to me at the hospital, bought me that bear with his own allowance, too. He just looked so guilty and I swear he was about to start crying 'cause he thought I was gonna 'hate him forever.' I just had to give him that name." She snuggled deeper into the fluffy futon and pillow taking a deep breath of the lingering scent of Kaito's body wash clinging to the pillowcase. "Since then, it's kind of been a tradition to pass Houdini back and forth whenever one of us gets hurt."

Conan watched her quietly, casting a furtive glance at the two small shadows he could see through the gap under the door. "I'll take good care of him then, Aoko-neechan," he promised to the back of her carelessly wind-blown hair. The two shadows at the door silently walked away.

"So are we gonna talk all night or are we gonna watch the best detective show ever," she replied in a sweetly merry voice.

Conan returned a genuine happy smile at the prospect of spending an evening watching his favorite show with no complaining Kogoro to mar the experience. "Raise the volume," he answered happily, determined to forget everything for the next few hours.

"That's the spirit!" Aoko cheered back, upping the volume until their favorite detective's voice filled the house despite the closed door.

Hearing the knock on the door, Kaito set his pencil down and stretched. A quick check through the peephole and he opened the door to a Hakuba staggering under the weight of the computer tower he was carrying. "Where can I put this?" Hakuba demanded, glaring at Kaito who had yet to move out of the way.

"Sorry. Here." Kaito lifted the computer out of his hands giving him the chance to wring feeling back into his fingers. His eyes went wide at the surprising weight. "What are you carrying in here?!"

"It's a Voodoo Firebird and I rebuilt it to carry a terabyte and a half of space," Hakuba muttered flexing blood back into his fingers.

"Right," Kaito muttered shifting his hold on the heavy tower. "What are you doing with this? Running your own server?" Hakuba ignored him giving him a pointed stare for the thief to move and let him in the house rather than keep standing conspicuously on the front stoop.

Kaito backed into the house, Hakuba following after. He stared up at the ceiling hearing the muffled background music of a television and a set of voices cheering, one of the voices decidedly feminine. "Who's…"

"Aoko and 'Conan-kun' are watching one of her box sets," he muttered standing in the hallway and staring at his father's portrait, wondering if he actually could press the upper corner with his foot. "She took over my room so this'll have to wait for later." He passed his weight from one foot to the next while his mind tried to process how he could actually go about trying to hit the release button.

"What are you trying to do, Kuroba?" Hakuba asked in curiosity.

"Uhh… can you press the top right corner of this picture?" Kaito asked in desperation. Hakuba looked at him askance but pressed on the picture anyway. The secret door swung open and Kaito quickly walked through, eager to set the heavy tower down on the room's worktable. Behind him, Hakuba hung in the doorway, looking down the stairs carefully. "It's safe to come in. Nothing's gonna explode on you," he called over his shoulder.

"Almost two years of trying to find this place," Hakuba murmured mostly to himself. "I never imagined you'd be inviting me in one day." He stepped down into the room cautiously, studying the aluminum bookcases of plastic bins neatly labeled with what type of police torturing device they held along with rolls of architectural blueprints for buildings all over Tokyo, most of them looking extremely old. He pulled out one for the Tocho complex he had just left and raised an eyebrow as he turned the pages, floor by floor, each neatly labeled in red pencil for each security camera location and circled locations for security blind spots in the building. The short notes in the margins were written in a hand he didn't recognize which he assumed to be Kuroba's father's handwriting. Out of curiosity, he turned to the building's sub-basement he had just spent the last three hours in and slowly studied the floor plans for the three floors that was Archives.

Satisfied, and with the beginnings of a plan, he set the blueprint back on the shelf he took it from and caught his sight on the dusty radio/cassette player on an equally dusty stool next to the bookshelf. The tape deck was open and a ninety-minute cassette sat in a tangled mess of magnetic tape. He carefully lifted the tape out of it dark brown nest, studying the impressive way the tape had tangled itself around the spinning drums that fed it over the magnetic reader.

"Don't pull on that!" Kaito called out, finally noticing what had captured Hakuba's attention. Hakuba let go of the tape in surprise and Kaito caught it before it could fall far and pull the tangled mess tighter. He set the tape back in the open deck with reverent care.

"I'm sorry, Kuroba," Hakuba said quietly watching the thief draw a deep sigh that the tape was safe. "I shouldn't have been messing with your things."

"…It's okay," Kaito said, staring at the player sadly. "It's… the message my dad left for me when I found this place. It didn't play very far before it turned out like this," he said with a rueful smile at the tangled mess.

"You never tried to untangle it?" Hakuba asked, watching Kaito carefully while the thief ran a light finger along the edge of the open cassette window.

"…no…" Kaito said finally. "If I did, it's like the last bit of him left would finally be gone." With a sniffle disguised as a hard swallow, he pushed Hakuba toward the stairs. "Lets go," he said pushing the detective ahead of him and out of the secret room. "I still have a lot of work to finish and the last thing I need is for Aoko to see us climbing out of a wall."

"I take it we won't be able to work on that drive tonight," Hakuba said waving off Kaito's hands firmly and walking out of the hidden door on his own.

"Doubt it," Kaito muttered walking back to his waiting homework.

"Then we'll do it tomorrow morning. Just plan on staying home tomorrow," Hakuba ordered, leaving Kaito to his homework and heading for the door.

Kaito raised an eyebrow. "The high and mighty Hakuba is planning on ditching?"

"Whatever we do with that drive, I need us to be finished by the time school is over, earlier if possible. I have something to look into tomorrow afternoon," he answered coolly.

"Fine. Whatever," Kaito muttered turning back to the wonderful world of defining inverse functions. "Don't you have homework from today to do? And how about the days you missed stalking…"

"You mean investigating you and Conan-kun? I kept up with it each day," he said giving the thief a pitying look at the stacks of textbooks on the coffee table. "If you were smart, you would have too. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Kaito grabbed one of the throw pillows on the couch behind him and hurled it after Hakuba into the hallway. "Jerk," he muttered under his breath hearing the front door close.

"Saguru-bouchan. What are you doing in your father's office at such an hour? You have class tomorrow."

Hakuba looked up sharply at the elderly woman wrapped in a fluffy pink robe standing in the doorway of his father's cluttered office from behind the computer for a moment before returning his attention back to the monitor. "Please go back to sleep, I'll be done shortly," he said to his baaya, watching him with a sharp eye.

"Why aren't you using your own computer? You know your father's computer is off limits to you. He has work sensitive information there," she scolded.

"I had to take my computer in," Hakuba said, neatly circumventing actually lying to her. "I promise I won't disturb anything related to his work," he said pushing his phone a little further under the newspaper his father had left on the desk with the back of his wrist during a smooth move with the mouse. Aware that his caretaker and housekeeper had no intention of leaving the room until he did, he set the pictures he had taken in Archives earlier to print. He retrieved his stack of warm freshly printed papers with one hand while his other disconnected the usb from his phone and returned it to his pocket hidden by the monitor between him and his watcher. He closed the document he had pasted the pictures to without saving and shut down the computer, shoving the papers into his school satchel. "Just an article I need to read for an assignment," he lied seeing his caretaker's suspicious gaze following him out the door.

"Nevertheless, I plan to inform your father when he gets home," she said closing the room's door behind him and locking the room. "Your detective work aside, your father has a very important position and responsibility in this city and you will not behave in any way unbecoming that station, Saguru-bouchan."

"It's not like he'll be home long enough to say anything to me about it," he muttered to himself walking down the dark dimly lit hallway to the stairs in the lonely wing of the house. After all, there was really no need to turn on lights in such a large mansion with only two people in it that used just the same handful of rooms.

Safely in his room, he punched holes in the papers and hid them in the center of his school binder, padded on each side within a thick section of notebook paper and replaced the binder in his satchel buckling it closed. Laying back in his bed, he stared at the gabled ceiling and thought over his plans for the next day. His vision kept drifting back to his school bag and the binder hiding the copies of the records he'd copied. Grumbling to himself about his own mounting paranoia, he finally got up and retrieved the incriminating binder and shoved it under his pillow for the night. "Damn those idiots, I'm going batty," he muttered climbing in bed and turning off his bedside lamp.

"I can't believe you're taller than me," Kaito complained, staring at how high his pajamas rode over Heiji's ankles.

"Don't worry about it. My stuff's kind of baggy on Kudo, too," Heiji said off-handedly lying back on the extra futon Kaito had dug out of his mother's closet. Kaito's expression changed to one of confusion looking over at the very small child in his bed.

"Yes. Thanks, Hattori. Thanks for pointing that out," Conan muttered at the implied insult to his normal size's lack of height. "Now shut up about it and go to sleep," he ordered testily and pulled the blankets up over his head to drown out the noise and light in the room.

"Don't go to sleep yet, you need to take another one of these," Kaito said poking at Conan's head until he resurfaced and dropped another ibuprofen in his hand. "I've already turned these on in case you need them," he said laying the headphones on the bed next to Conan in the lap of the massive teddy bear sitting against the wall. The boy gave a curt but grateful nod back, swallowing the pill and setting his water back down.

"What are those for?" Heiji asked propping himself up on an elbow.

"Nothing," Conan answered back a little too quickly with a burn of red dusting his nose. Heiji raised an eyebrow switching his attention to Kaito for an answer.

"He's stalking his girlfriend," he answered, lying down with a relaxed sigh of his own in his futon after the exhausting day.

"Kuroba!"

"And what's with the bear?" Heiji asked innocently. A deep red blush crept up Conan's face to the tips of his ears and he slowly turned his eyes to Kaito with a small tight shaking of his head. A slow Cheshire cat grin spread over Kaito's face realizing exactly what the boy was asking. His hand shot into the pocket of his pants still lying on the floor, pulling out his cell phone.

"You wouldn't believe the most adorable picture I took today," Kaito drawled out leaning his hand over for Heiji to inspect his new wallpaper.

"You're sending me that," Heiji replied instantly.

"Shut. up. both of you or I'll smother you both in your sleep," the crabby voice from the bed ordered in no uncertain terms.

"You can barely move," Kaito pointed out, dropping his phone in Heiji's hands for the Osakan detective to transfer the picture himself.

"I'll figure it out."

"Try it and I'm sending this to 'Neechan," Heiji muttered back, well used to the small detective's moodiness and keeping silent on the fact that he had already texted the picture to Ran.

"Is he always this crabby or is it me he doesn't like?" Kaito whispered to Heiji while he nestled further under his blankets.

"Nah, he's always like that," Heiji muttered back in a low voice, pulling on his cap and tugging it down over his eyes, settling into his borrowed futon and pillow, "unless you're 'Neechan. You get used to it."

"I can do 'Neechan," Kaito whispered back with just the right inflection of timber that had Heiji lifting his cap slightly and giving the thief an amused grin at the familiar feminine tone.

"I can hear you," Conan growled from the bed in a tired voice. "Go to sleep or I'll dart you."

"Kudo, you're not wearing it," Heiji muttered, dropping the cap down again and turning on his side, intent on following the diminutive detectives order and getting some decent rest after the hellish couple of days of worry he'd already spent on the brat.

"And I, kind of, already used it on Hakuba," Kaito followed.

Conan eyed him with a raised eyebrow from the bed for a moment before shifting his gaze back to the ceiling. "I don't even wanna know," he muttered, "Just go to sleep."

"Yes, sir," Kaito murmured sarcastically grabbing the nearest thing he could reach, one of his house slippers, and winging it at the light switch. "Control-freak," he mumbled under his breath as the room plunged into darkness.

From the bed, a teddy bear came flying at his face with perfect aim, despite the darkness. Without missing a beat, Kaito pulled the fluffy thing that smelled pleasantly of peach blossom shampoo into a hug against his chest and turned over facing the door with his back to the now very peeved not-child. "Mr. Houdini's too good for you anyway," he muttered curling around the fluffy bear. "'night," he mumbled to his two houseguests neither of which answered, one already deeply asleep and the other out of rebellious stubbornness.

Conan glared at the shadows the tree outside Kaito's window was casting on the ceiling. Despite his insistence on the two 'distractions' going to bed so he could get some rest, he was still completely wide-awake. Glancing down, he could just make out the elbow of Heiji's far-side arm that he had tucked under his head where he slept on his back, snoring lightly and Kaito, from what he could make out in the shadows, had his back to him. He hadn't moved an inch in the last forty minutes, which Conan knew for a fact since he kept checking what time it was on his cell. It was probably safe to say the thief was sound asleep too.

Giving up, Conan slowly, carefully, rolled onto his stomach with a minimal amount of whispered curses and dropped himself over the edge of the bed, grabbing his phones out of habit. Properly standing on his own two feet unassisted for the first time in days, he held onto the bedside chair until he was sure his legs would carry him. Finding himself staring at the stack of books, he gave the sleeping Kaito a self-amused snort and grabbed the Night Baron hardback off the top of the stack, tucking it under his arm as he made his way carefully to the bedroom door over the combined minefield of clutter on the floor from Kaito's relocation from his usual bedding and Heiji's added backpack of things. Quietly, he stole out into the hallway, his ribs very glad Kaito had left the door open as reaching for it would have hurt, a lot.

From his futon, Kaito opened an eye and watched Conan creep out into the hallway. Silently, he leaned out of his bed to peek after the boy, watching him make his way holding onto the wall with a free hand. Conan stiffly made his way to the hall restroom, turning on the nightlight and pulling the door just short of closed. He gave Heiji a quick glance to make sure the detective of the west was really sleeping and crawled out of bed after Conan. Through the crack in the door, he watched Conan pull a towel from the towel rack to fashion a makeshift pillow and carefully lay himself down on one of the fluffy bathroom mats on his back, settling the book on his stomach, ready to start reading. He gave the boy a last small grin and backed himself into his room to sleep.

Conan studied the cover of the heavy novel resting on his belly one more time under the dim lights of the numerous nightlights Kaito had plugged into every low plug in the bathroom. Truly it was the only thing his father had written that he had not read and he could grudgingly admit his reasons were rather petty. He opened the book to its title page and the square of paper he'd discovered earlier fell to his chest. Balancing the book with a hand, he picked up the note and opened it, studying his father's handwriting. It's twin, still in the old leather wallet, was sitting at the bottom of a drawer in his old bedroom. The corner of his mouth twitched up remembering the adventure he'd dragged Ran on thanks to that note. He made a mental note to dig it out the next time Ran dragged him on their monthly cleaning trip to his house. Kaito would likely enjoy having it more than he. He set the scrap of paper safely on the floor next to him and opened the book to the first chapter.

He was barely one-fourth through the book when he put it down across his chest, wide-eyed and his hands quivering in adrenalin rushed panic, his chest tight from his hitched breathing. The story, his father's book, had a frighteningly familiar plot. Night Baron, a criminal and master thief in his own right, had uncovered a mysterious shadowy group of criminals working from the deep underground in his city searching, not for a jewel, but a mystical relic that could bring great power to its wielder. The differences were there, but most of the main points were far too close to be simple coincidence.

Using his finger to mark his place, he shut the book and stared at the front cover to study the book's title. The rest of the series carried the simple main title of 'Night Baron,' but the first ten special editions of volume one still bore the original working title of 'The Adventures of the Great Night Baron!' He ran a finger lightly over the exclamation point, tracing his father's handwriting. With a searching hand, he pulled up the folded piece of paper and held open the square next to the book's title. 'No way! There's no way… right?'

He opened the book to the publication information. Book one had come out nine years ago, the year after Kuroba Toichi's death… and Kaito had mentioned he received one every year on his birthday. Now that he thought about it, his father did release a Night Baron novel every year, in June if he remembered right, like clockwork, the only book he ever managed to keep his deadlines for. On a hunch, he brought the book close to his nose and took an experimental sniff. It was faint, but he could just make out the scent of perfume over the musty smell of paper and ink… an all too familiar perfume from the number of tight entrapping hugs he'd received in his lifetime.

With a growing frown, he traced his finger over the publication date and stared at the bathroom ceiling deep in thought. Kaito had said his father was killed ten years ago. He closed his eyes trying to search his memory. That winter…he had a sudden memory of a strange night when his mother had received a phone call late at night, or late to him at the time, and hung up the phone crying. He vaguely remembered his parents having a rushed conversation and he was bundled up to sleep at Agasa's that night and wound up spending the entire following day at the professor's home as well. That had to be the night. He'd also been shuffled off to Agasa's for another sleepover and day of seeing neither parent later that week. 'That must have been the day of the funeral,' he mused. He'd finally been allowed to come home that night and he remembered being anxious to ask his parents what was going on but they had spent the rest of that night after the funeral in his father's library arguing about something. When he had walked in on them, they had ordered him straight to bed, all but pushing him out the door, and locked it firmly once he was out in the hallway. He never had received an explanation about the weirdness that week and he gradually noticed how his mother would tear up every time he asked so he had eventually stopped asking. His father had started his first manuscript for Night Baron a few weeks after that. It was with a queer feeling that he reopened the book and turned to the table of contents, studying the titles for anything out of the ordinary.

After carefully getting up off the floor, a job that took more effort than he'd imagined after his muscles had stiffened lying on the cold tile, he'd scrounged an eyeliner pencil from a drawer that he hoped belonged to Kaito's mother and confiscated the roll of toilet paper for scratch work. A cursory study of the chapter titles had revealed a definite pattern of alternating question mark and exclamation point ending titles, but so far no cipher, anagram, or encryption pattern he'd tried so far had found anything hidden. He shut the book and set it aside, leaning back against the cabinets of the sink vanity.

It was in that moment that his forgotten cell phone started ringing, incredibly loudly considering the silence of night. He scrambled to answer the phone as quickly as possible before he could wake up Heiji or Kaito. He even quite forgot that the phone he was answering sans bowtie… was Kudo's.

"Hello?" he answered slightly rushed and rubbing the sore junction between his shoulder and neck.

"Kudo-kun! It's been a while. How ya doin'?"

Conan's eyebrows shot into his hairline in surprise. "Why are you calling me?" he asked in curiosity.

"The better question is, what are you doing still awake? I thought for sure, I'd be waking you up."

"Yet you called at an unreasonable time anyway," Conan retorted, his surprise quickly wearing off.

"Just called to let you know… I may have found what you're looking for, but it's not safe to discuss over the phone. I'll tell you everything in person in a few weeks. I need to confirm a few things first. And I've taken care of everything else you asked for."

Conan gaped wordlessly for a few seconds. "…thanks," he eventually got out.

"Alright, see you then…"

"Wait!" Conan cried suddenly. "I need you to find information on one more thing."

"…fine, but you're pushing it. What else do you need?"

Hakuba checked the time again on his bedside alarm, buttoning his gakuran as fast as he could. He really hadn't meant to but for the first time since he was in grade school he had slept through his alarm. His baaya had been the one to wake him ten minutes ago thinking he was ready by then. Now he was fighting against time if he wanted his housekeeper to think he was actually leaving for school.

He pulled his binder out from under his pillow and shoved it into his open satchel. His hands slowed down as he pulled the top flap over the top to buckle it. He stared down at his bag with on odd disjointed feeling. 'Didn't I leave this closed last night?' He mulled over his actions the night before trying to remember whether or not he had closed the bag. He was pulled from his musings by a sharp knock on his door.

"Saguru-bouchan, you're going to be late."

"Alright. I'm on my way," he called through the door. He gave his bag a last look before grabbing it and running down the hallway for the stairs.

Hakuba frowned at the Kansai detective standing in the doorway. "I thought you were going back home yesterday," he said walking past the equally frowning Heiji into Kaito's foyer.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Heiji muttered back, closing and locking the door. "And when did I ever say I was leaving!" he called after Hakuba's retreating back.

Hakuba climbed the stairs, cocking his head trying to hear the muffled arguing coming from Kaito's room. The voices were too muffled to make out, but it sounded as though Conan were speaking some kind of instructions or orders to Kuroba and the thief was arguing back somewhat rudely. He frowned to himself realizing the three must have been awake and working long before he woke up himself. The thought irked him.

"Have you brought my computer upstairs yet?" he asked Heiji walking up the stairs behind him.

"Ah… um… about that…"

Hakuba opened the door to Kaito's room.

"I told you already, I did what you said and it won't run," Kaito argued to the boy sitting in bed with a multitude of pillows holding him up from his spot on the floor in front of his monitor.

"And I said… you're probably… spelling it wrong!" Conan argued back. Hakuba looked past Kaito to try and see what was causing him so many problems. "It's p – u – t – …"

"I can spell 'putty'!" Kaito snapped back. "There, I'm in," he called back, minimizing his command prompt.

"My computer!" Hakuba exclaimed seeing his tower already set up and humming, hooked up to Kaito's tower.

"Hakuba-san," Conan gave him an apologetic half smile. "Sorry. I got… impatient. I asked him… to try."

"Are you still having trouble breathing?" Hakuba asked setting aside his annoyance for starting without him to look the boy over. He frowned seeing the dark circles under eyes that looked a little red. His worry was answered for him when Conan gave a wide yawn.

"He's actually doing better, he just can't breathe well sitting up," Kaito muttered from his spot on the floor.

"I don't really need all these banda…"

"No," Kaito replied, cutting Conan off before he could finish. "He would breathe and talk fine if he lay down but he complained that he couldn't see," he finished.

"That's good," Hakuba answered, giving Conan an absentminded pat on the head and joined Heiji on the floor behind Kaito. "You're looking at the source code?"

Kaito frowned, turning the pages of his C++ book. "Yeah, I can't figure this out," he grumbled. "He locked the drive."

"That would be because that's Assembly," Hakuba smirked looking over Kaito's shoulder. "It's pretty old school. Move over and let me do this before you screw it up."

"Well excuse me if my specialty is jewel thievery and not hijacking people's bank accounts!" Kaito shoved the keyboard towards his classmate with an exasperated huff. "The drive's probably too corrupt to retrieve anything anyway." He flopped back onto the carpet pouting.

"Don't you… dare… say that," wheezed a tired voice from under the blankets. Kaito politely stuck his tongue out at Conan from his upside-down vantage point.

"Well, I don't see how either of you can make sense of a bunch of numbers and letters," Heiji muttered watching Hakuba scroll through an endless column of source code.

"That's because some of us are blessed with higher intellect," Hakuba returned absently ignoring the stifled growls behind him.

"Is he always this much of an ass?" Heiji muttered through clenched teeth while he lay back on the floor to join the thief in his pout.

"Yes," Kaito answered from under the arm currently draped over his face.

"How do you stand him?" Heiji asked leaning back on his hands and certainly ignoring the snickers occasionally punctuated by gasps of pain from the bed.

"I dye his hair green on a regular basis."

The noise from the bed was now more gasps of pain than snickers. Hakuba 'hmphed' at them but otherwise stayed engrossed with the computer. "You know… Hattori," Conan finally managed, "you're… the only one here… who can't read that."

"…shut up Kudo." Heiji glared. "You're all a bunch of hackers and that's a federal crime."

"I'm in. I've found the entry password protocols." Hakuba broke in. Heiji and Kaito scrambled to flank Hakuba around the monitor while Conan strained to see from the bed. The small login window shone brightly at them from the black background of the command prompt. "For such a high level crime syndicate this computer was owned by an idiot or a pompous fool far too overconfident in his building's security," he turned to smile at Conan over his shoulder, "He used the auto-remember function on his login. You picked the perfect hard drive Ku-Conan-kun."

Conan let out the breath he was holding when Hakuba leaned to the side and he saw the line of asterisks in the user name line.

"All we need is the password and we don't even have to hack our way in," Kaito grinned.

"Well that should be easy," Heiji muttered sarcastically, "anyone know Mr. Six Asterisks' birthday?"

"Actually, I think I can help on that," Hakuba muttered typing away on the keyboard.

"Don't guess," Kaito warned, "Kudo said the system is protected by the Night Baron virus. One wrong keystroke and the entire thing gets wiped."

"I'm not an idiot Kuroba, I know what I'm doing," Hakuba groused, "As I was saying, I'm betting this idiot who had the gall to save his login information probably used the password hint program too." He smiled to himself feeling the room brighten up around him.

"You really think he was that dumb?" Heiji asked incredulously and not without a tiny bit of hope.

"Lets find out," Hakuba grinned confidently as he ran the program. Obediently, the computer opened a small window titled 'password hint.' 'FATHER OF NIGHT BARON' blinked up at them from the monitor.

"Damn, does anyone know who wrote the Night Baron virus," Heiji asked.

"Maybe they mean Night Baron the book character," Kaito suggested.

"Well we need to be sure," Hakuba mused, "We only get one shot at this."

"…Kudo Yusaku…" came a soft voice from the bed. The other three turned to the small boy silently who was clutching the blankets in a shaking white-knuckle grip.

"Are ya sure?" Heiji asked quietly breaking the odd silence that had fallen over them.

"It's Kudo Yusaku." Conan told them softly.

"Okay then. Do it," he urged solidly to Hakuba who was watching the small boy closely.

Hakuba typed in the name and hesitated only a moment to take a deep breath before entering the password with Kaito crossing his fingers next to him. Conan and Heiji confidently watched on as the monitor flickered in reversed blue and black colors before processing the password and opening to the standard desktop background wallpaper.

"That's just sick," Kaito shuddered. "It's like they're using your father to protect their evil dark empire."

"Oh, it gets… better," Conan chuckled darkly while wrapping an arm around his sore ribs. "Dad wrote… the Night Baron series… about your Dad."

Kaito paled visibly while he processed this new information. "Of course. Why not," he laughed darkly bringing Hakuba's sharp gaze on him instantly. "The universe and these bastards are determined to ruin both our lives anyway they can, so of course it's our fathers protecting them." He grabbed the nearest thing to him, his C++ book, and flung it viciously into the wall. Hakuba raised an arm to protest but was silenced by Heiji yanking his arm back down with a silencing glare while Kaito stalked around his room picking up anything handy and flinging it into the same wall. Conan just buried himself deeper into the covers blocking out the commotion. As quickly as the anger had filled him it left and Kaito sank to the floor against the bed and let his head fall back on the mattress heavily. "I am so tired of being screwed with," he muttered with an exhausted sigh staring blankly at the ceiling. He blinked when a small, cool hand rested gently on his forehead ruffling his bangs slightly. He looked up at Conan from the corner of his eye who gave him a reassuring smile.

"I completely understand… how you feel," his light gasping voice replied. "So we should… get serious… about putting them… all in jail."

"You know what, I keep finding new ways to hate these guys," Heiji said dropping down next to the thief, opposite Conan.

"I take it you're expecting me to do all the work with this?" Hakuba muttered to the trio at the bed.

"You are the Linux expert," Kaito replied, grabbing his pillow from the other end of his futon and laying out flat on his stomach next to Hakuba to watch, just as quickly over his short tantrum.

Hakuba sighed and started searching through the drive, folder by folder. His eyes widened as he found folders one would expect to find in any normal business computer. "Conan-kun, listen to this, I've found folders for expenses, invoices, payroll…"

"Payroll!" came the set of voices in stereo from the bed. Hakuba and Kaito looked over their shoulders at the eager pair of eyes, one leaning forward the other trying to and frankly looking as though he wished he could snatch the mouse and keyboard away from the blonde detective for himself.

"Um… alright. Payroll, then," Hakuba answered, opening the folder. He was met by a column of files lacking any sort of names, instead, listing files with long random strings of characters. "Oh, no," he muttered softly backing out and trying another folder. He was met by the same strings of random characters.

"What'd ya mean 'oh, no'?" Heiji asked perching forward from the bed to read over his shoulder.

"Is it corrupted?" Kaito asked, looking up at Hakuba for confirmation.

"Not sure," Hakuba murmured, setting his window wider so he could see the entire string. "There might be some kind of encryption at work here. Hold on, I'm going to get a closer look at these files."

Unable to see over Hakuba's back and Kaito's head, Heiji crept closer to watch from next to the thief. "What's he doing?" he asked softly, giving Hakuba a wary look in case he decided to insult his intelligence some more.

"He's checking to see how big the encrypted files are… I think," Kaito murmured, reading along the best he could.

"This encryption is… insane," Hakuba said softly leaning close to the screen. "These aren't files, they're far too big."

"They're all around 25.6 megs in the folder," Kaito commented. "How big are we talking?"

"Gigs. Several," Hakuba replied, scrolling through coding. "I know this…" he murmured, trailing off while he read through lines of programming.

"Something you've seen before?" Kaito asked.

Hakuba nodded absently. "This encryption reminds me of a case I helped out on in London two years ago. The computer was seized for evidence but the Yard couldn't break the encryption. I caught a glimpse while they were running a dictionary attack. It didn't work, though. I don't think they ever cracked the drive. I think they said it was called truecrypt."

"Don't say that," Kaito whined, dropping his face into his pillow. "Isn't that the one that gave the FBI trouble on that case in Brazil?"

"Trouble?" Heiji asked looking absolutely lost.

"Yeah, they couldn't crack it even after… um… twelve months or something like that," Kaito said in a diminishing voice once he noticed Conan glaring at them all.

"Tell me… you know a way… around it," Conan demanded from the bed.

Hakuba gave them a wry smirk while he pulled up the lanyard around his neck that he'd been wearing under his school uniform. "You don't know I have this, especially you Kuroba," he said gesturing with the black drive in his hand at the end of the black lanyard, "And if you tell my father, you're dead to me."

"Why? What is that?" Kaito asked curiosity peaked.

"My birthday present to myself," Hakuba said with a happy grin. "My father handed me his card and said to buy myself something. He never really looked at the statement when he paid it off so he has no idea how much I spent on this and I'd appreciate it if he never did, got it?"

"How much did ya spend?" Heiji asked watching Hakuba hook up his drive to a firewire port in the back of the tower.

"Uh… around 66,600 yen," Hakuba muttered crawling back into place.

"You spent almost 70,000 of your dad's money on a jump drive?" Kaito asked, his eyebrows jumping to his hairline. "I'm impressed. And you call me the thief."

"You are a thief. And I paid for this," Hakuba shot back.

"No, your dad paid for that. What is it anyway?" Kaito asked

"This is a forensics level decryptor, and you wish you had it," Hakuba grinned smugly. "You wanted to start with payroll, right?" he asked the tense Conan trying desperately to see around the three crowding the screen. A couple of keystrokes and several minutes later and the first random string file was decrypted into a new folder. Hakuba opened the folder and leaned back as Kaito and Heiji crowded him out for space.

"What's… in the folder?" Conan called from the bed in frustration.

"Kudo, these are payroll spreadsheets," Heiji said slowly, "From 1940 through 1959!"

"Can you open one of these?" Kaito asked an annoyed Hakuba.

"I could if you moved," he muttered testily, waiting for the thief and Kansai detective to move back. He tried the 1950 file, which opened a window demanding a password. "It looks like everything encrypted is file protected too. Before we open anything, I think you should let me work on decrypting everything in the drive. It may take a while and I'd like to get everything unlocked before I have to go," Hakuba said to Conan who gave him a nod from the bed. "Alright, I'm going to document everything I do," he said reaching for his school satchel and pulling out his binder and pencil case, "for when we report this. I'm assuming you intend for this hard drive to be turned over to the proper authorities eventually."

"Yes, good idea," Conan said with a heavy sigh, settling back into his pillows.

"If this is going to take a while, you should get some sleep," Kaito said looking back at Conan over his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure you didn't sleep last night." Conan opened his mouth to protest but Kaito held up a hand to stave him off. "How late did you stay up in the restroom last night?"

"…four am," Conan answered reluctantly.

"Catch a nap. We don't need you getting sick again because you won't take care of yourself when you're already hurt. I can tell you for a fact Hakuba's not going to do anything near interesting until he's done unlocking the drive and it would have been boring sitting around waiting 'til he's done, anyway." Hakuba cast Kaito a dirty look but returned his attention back to his self-imposed job. "The two of us can go get something for us to eat," he said clapping Heiji on the shoulder and heading for his door.

"I guess we'll be right back," Heiji said following Kaito out the door.

"Fine, whatever," Conan muttered grouchily, tugging his pillows lower.

"I told you it was a good book!" Kaito yelled back to him from the hallway.

Conan crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance. Hakuba turned around raising an eyebrow at the pouting seven-year-old. "Don't ask," Conan muttered, grabbing the blankets and pulling them over his head blocking out the light.

"I need to get going," Hakuba muttered, grabbing his school satchel and collecting his pens and highlighters.

Kaito leaned over to see his bedside alarm clock. "School is still in session for another hour, I think your dad's going to notice you're skipping if you show up this early."

Hakuba gave a self-amused snort, reaching for his binder. "No, he won't. He wouldn't notice if I decided to wear a dress and call myself 'Susan' if it didn't affect his ratings in the polls. He isn't that happy about my being a detective either as it stands. But today I need all the extra time I can find before the building closes." He looked up catching Conan's eye. "Conan-kun, do you think you can make me a quick list of each police investigation you know of where this organization was involved?"

Conan gave a slow nod and held out his hand expectantly to Heiji who quickly scrounged a pencil and notebook paper from Kaito's desk. "Do you just… want the case numbers?" he asked, looking awfully curious at Hakuba for needing the information.

"That would be perfect if you know them all," Hakuba said looking up and noticing Conan's expression of inquisitiveness. "Ask me later once I'm sure of what I'm looking into," he said softly. Conan nodded with the serious expression of a sealed deal and let the subject drop, bending his head to his work. Hakuba flipped through his binder to the extra pages he had hidden the night before until he found the memo about the helicopter transfer. "Kuroba, is there any way to find out if this warehouse is one of their buildings? Safely? The helicopter wreckage was supposedly sent here." He held out the binder to the thief so he could read the page.

Kaito stared at the address and crossed over to his computer to search by satellite view. "Oh sure, it looks like I'll have plenty of cover to…"

"I don't want to hear what you're going to do," Hakuba interrupted, "just, can you do it?"

"Yeah, I think so," Kaito nodded with a hidden grin at Hakuba's squeamishness for illegal activities. "I'll work on that tonight. Anything in particular I should be looking for?"

"Track who owns this place. I'm assuming you can help confirm if any names he finds are suspicious," he said looking over to Conan. Conan nodded absently without looking up from his writing. "And if you can without getting yourself shot, find out if the helicopter really is here," he said to Kaito, closing the notebook. "I'll be back after five." He stuffed the binder in his bag and hurried out.

"So… is anyone going to ask what he's doing?" Heiji asked looking back and forth between Kaito and Conan.

Kaito sighed, turning back to his computer and zooming in on his target building. "I'm sure we'll hear plenty soon enough," he said, "You can expect him to skulk and be secretive until he's sure so he can corner all the gloating rights." Heiji muffled a snicker.

"What's his… job?" Conan asked from the bed.

Kaito shrugged. "Odd jobs at his dad's office I think. Personally, I think it's the only time he sees the man."

"His dad's office… in the Tocho building?" Conan asked thinking back to a comment Hakuba had made just over a full week ago.

"Yeah, why?" Kaito asked, looking up at the brightening expression on the boy's face.

"It's nothing," Conan replied, worming his way back into lying flat on the bed, "just figured out… how he gets his information."

"Thanks for helping out again, son. After you log those files into Archives, you can go home. I don't want you neglecting your homework," the city of Tokyo's police commissioner said with a hand over the mouthpiece of his phone.

"Of course, father," Hakuba replied absently, not really expecting an answer as his father's attention was already back to his phone call with the mayor. He straightened the thin stack of files his father had handed him absently and pushed his way out, leaning back against the heavy ornate doors that had closed at his back with a heavy sigh. He took one last steadying deep breath and looked out over the empty secretary's anteroom.

Shimada-san had long since left for home and there was no one left in the room to watch him. He opened the thin long drawer of the desk and 'borrowed' her keys, unlocking the room's supply closet and disappearing inside with one last cautious look to the doors of his father's office. Alone in the narrow closet, he pulled out an unused book cart and started loading it with all the empty file boxes he could fit. In one, he dumped the folders his father had handed him and for each of the others, he placed a heavy ream of paper for added weight. Loaded and ready, he pushed the cart out of the closet and grabbed his school bag from the waiting chair he'd left it on and slipped it into one of the faux boxes and pushed the cart to the elevators before he could think better of what he was doing.

"Wow! He really is working you two days a week now Su-chan?" Yasue exclaimed peering over the load of boxes he was pushing to see him. "And how many files does he expect you to log?!" she asked poking one of the boxes that didn't so much as budge with the weight of a ream of paper weighing it down.

"I've said not to call me that," Hakuba muttered on reflex, not really expecting the Archives manager to change her ways anytime before he was thirty. It was the same conversation, they had every time he worked Archives, but this time he was acutely aware of the security camera over her head watching everyone who entered the basement floor. He pulled the clipboard close and signed in with a carefully fast, unsteady handwriting that made his name completely illegible and pulled out a stash of two boxes of chocolate truffles and a bar of godiva dark chocolate that he dumped over the sign-in sheet and pushed her way.

"Ooo! What's the special occasion?" Yasue asked snatching up the offered chocolate and dumping the sign-in clipboard on one of the shelves of the bookcase behind her without giving it a second glance.

Hakuba gave an inward sigh of relief and forced his attention away from the clipboard. "I might be working late with all this," he said lightly, forcing himself to keep looking her in the eye.

"Need help? Two sets of hands work faster than one."

"N-No that's fine," Hakuba replied, definitely feeling the unfamiliarity of hiding his intentions. "Besides isn't your soap opera starting?" he asked pointing to the tv screen behind her.

"It's already four? I almost lost track of time. Sorry kiddo, you're on your own," she grinned turning up the volume. Hakuba took the opportunity to push the cart into the aisles and turn a corner as quickly as he could getting out of her direct line of sight although he was still walking under any number of security cameras. As soon as he disappeared, Yasue switched her tv to the security camera feed, watching the light-haired boy from the overhead cameras.

He made his way to the small freight elevator in the back and rode it to the bottom third sub-basement floor of Archives, which was mostly forgotten and woefully neglected. The floor also had the fewest number of cameras according to Kuroba's floor plans, leaving large blind spots, the powers that be figuring that with Archives only having one exit, money could be saved in security on a floor that was seldom used housing police reports from over forty years ago.

He unloaded his boxes on a back table close to an ancient Xerox machine from the mid-eighties that he knew was also in one of the security camera blind spots. Hakuba gave an inward shudder at the thought that he was starting to think like Kuroba.

Out of anyone's sight, he opened the box that actually held the few folders his father had given him and pulled out his school satchel with the list Conan had made him. Using the nearby computer on that floor would unfortunately take him in view of the cameras but he was fairly sure the angle would show nothing out of the ordinary in his actions. He searched the first ID number on the list and disappeared up the concrete utility stairs to find the corresponding box, the file on the Four Diamonds bank robbery a year ago that had resulted in the unsolved murder of a teller, guard, and getaway driver over the next few days.

With the box safely in his camera free corner, a cursory pass of flipping through the box's contents revealed a liberal use of censored black lines. He was grateful that he still remembered most of the original report when he had read it last year. After a quick self-conscious look around, he pulled out the thick stack of police reports and department emails from the curious case and carried them to the copy machine.

He heard the footsteps scant seconds before Yasue found him giving just enough time to grab one of his father's folders and get himself in front of the computer holding his breath to hide the fact that his breathing was now rather rushed.

"There you are Su-chan. What are you doing all the way down here? You must have been climbing those stairs over and over again," Yasue exclaimed walking up behind him and peeking at the search screen over his shoulder.

He tried not to tense and cringe when her face came uncomfortably close reading the legitimate search on his file for a recently cracked break-in. "I… ah… had a headache and the light was more manageable down here," he lied, stumbling slightly over the quickly thought of deception. 'Yes. Definitely spent too much time with Kuroba,' he grumbled inwardly, keeping his eyes glued on the screen logging the folders contents.

"Ehh?" she mused aloud looking up at the fluorescent lights high above them, many of which were in need of replacing. "If you weren't feeling well, I could have lent you a hand," she said making her way to the table with its open box and looking in. Hakuba tensed, the muscles that ran between his shoulders on his back drawing tight in a stressful knot while she poked through the files but refusing to look away from the screen and draw attention where he didn't want it. "Never mind, it looks like you're almost done. Already finished with all those other boxes?" she asked looking at the book cart holding the other boxes that he'd pushed against the wall by the copy machine.

"Yes, I just have this last box," he murmured trying to look deeply involved in his work even though his breathing had hitched to tight gasps while he watched her attention move to the file boxes now filled with copy after copy of illegally obtained records out of the corner of his eye.

"Well if you're close to finished, I'll leave you to it." Hakuba watched her leave, hunching over the keyboard as she squeezed past him, his hands clenching tight to the edges of the pedestal holding it and refusing to let go while his heart was hammering. 'All this sneaking around is bad for my health,' he grumbled inwardly, firmly blaming his current situation on his annoying classmate and thief. He gave himself a firm reprimand not to make such reprehensible behavior a habit and headed for the stairs in search of the folder's box.

When he finally found it, he was surprised to see it was just a few shelves away from the box for the tower disaster's records he had opened the day before. Out of curiosity, he lifted the cover on the box and saw exactly what he expected to see, the reports he had filed were already crisscrossed with blackout lines save for a few inner department emails and memos. He took a closer look at one of the blemish free memos, one about calling for all records of the forensics reports involved to be sealed as classified and redundant copies to be destroyed. An order that had struck him as a little excessive and very odd. And for some reason, the paper nagged at him; something was off about it. He gasped softly when he realized what was wrong. The header and seal had changed from his father's office to the name and seal of Minato's superintendent, Matsumoto Kiyonaga. Without further prodding, he grabbed the box and snuck it downstairs to be copied.

It was while he was hurrying with the box of valuable records on the tower disaster, that his pants leg snagged on an old browned dusty box a few aisles from his base and pulled the box off the shelf dumping a mess of papers over the floor. "Damn it," he cursed with a frown, dropping to a crouch setting his box on the floor and started picking up pages from the who knew how old case. His eyes widened when he realized, like every case Conan's list had led him to, this file also had page upon page of censor lines. But unlike the new cases that contained Xeroxes of the originals, the files in his hands were the original police reports with markered lines. He ran a light finger over one of the pages and could still feel the raised and now slightly sticky typed script under the marker thanks to the slight deterioration of the cheap ink ribbons the department used to use. There was plenty modern forensics could do to clean up these pages. Without a second though, he gathered up the papers including the pages still in the box and returned the box lid to a now empty receptacle adding the files to his copied records.

Working against the clock now that Yasue had seen how few folders he had left, he tore into his last ream of paper and set to copying the files from the tower disaster and logging in the last few folders. Task accomplished and the last few pages preloaded in the copier, he crept into the sub-basement aisles, seeking out the other blind spots and started checking box contents for censored reports and emptying the contents of those that did. "I'm just borrowing these for research," he said aloud to assuage his guilt while he packed up the last of his things. "I'll bring these right back tomorrow if they're useless. It's not stealing. That would make me no better than Kuroba," he muttered quietly trying desperately to believe his own words.

Stowing the tower case box back on its proper shelf, he filed the last of his folders and cut a hasty retreat, barely taking the time to give Yasue a proper goodbye on his way to the elevator. He pushed the book cart out into the lobby and dug out his phone, ready to call his Baaya to bring his father's car to pick up his heavy load of stuffed file boxes but thought better of it at the last minute. While his copying of archived documents was not necessarily illegal, if you bent a few rules and squinted hard, his abducting of records from the third basement surely was and the elderly woman knew him well enough to realize something was up with the heated flush to his face, the cold sweat starting to make itself known as he pushed his trove past the security desk, and his pathological need to scan his environment every fifteen seconds. His heart was hammering by the time he made it to the security check point at the door and its sensing pillars he would have to cross with all those boxes. His mind jumped to frantic overload trying to remember if security had reached the Archive's third floor in their updating. He almost slowed down in his approach, cursing himself for not thinking of trying to sneak out the back loading docks where there were far fewer people and no metal detectors and electronic sensors, but it was too late now. The three security guards at their station had already seen him heading for the door… and one was now heading his way. He cringed, hearing the guard call out to him and slowed to a halt just five meters from the front door.

"Sorry, Hakuba-san, but they've been cracking down on us for being too lax on protocol," the young security guard said catching up to him and motioning him over to the metal detector.

"Of course, it's just fine" Hakuba answered back woodenly watching the guard take hold of his book cart and start lifting boxes onto the conveyor belt to be x-rayed. He stared confusedly at the bright plastic basket the guard held out to him. "Oh, right. Forgive me," he muttered taking the basket and pulling out his cell phone, keys, and anything else metal on autopilot more concerned with watching his boxes disappear into the massive machine and waiting for some kind of alarm to blare.

"It all looks good, Hakuba-san," the guard said in a casual voice that belied the frazzled teen's nerves. "You can go through now," he prodded seeing that Hakuba was still standing hesitantly in front of the metal detector. Hakuba gave a curt nod and couldn't quite stop his hands from clenching onto his pants legs when he walked through the detector. He let go of the breath he hadn't realized he was holding as he found himself on the other side free of any beeps, alarms or klaxons outing him to security for what he was doing.

On the other side, he gathered his school satchel and stacked the three boxes still on the rollers and started looking around frantically for his other three missing ones. "You sure have a heavy load there," the guard commented off-handedly. He looked up to see the last of his boxes in the guard's arms, two of which he knew to be the ones holding the sto-borrowed files. He froze, his stomach plummeting at the dread that he'd been found out. "Hakuba-keisou should learn to relax and not take so much work home with him. Lets go before that nanny of yours gets tired of waiting," he said kindly.

"You're helping me?" Hakuba asked feeling quite the dunce once the words left his mouth before he could stop them. Maybe it was the Kansai detective he'd been hanging around too much.

"No offense, but I can't let a twig thing like you carry all this by himself." Hakuba followed him out the rotating glass doors and down the court steps still somewhat shell-shocked that he was almost free. "Where's your caretaker's car?" the guard asked.

"Umm… She's been feeling ill," he lied again.

"Alright, I'll hail a taxi for you."

Hakuba waited patiently on the curb while the guard caught a taxi and proceeded to load his file boxes in the trunk for him. Was this how it felt to be Kuroba, when the powers of the universe lined up for you to get away with something? It was like fate was handing him clear permission to make off with his collection of records; he hadn't even had to lift a finger, and it was a heady adrenalin-pumped feeling. He shook his head trying to dislodge such dangerous thinking.

"Thank you," he said politely with a short bow, finally remembering his manners.

"Not a problem, Hakuba-san," the guard said waiting for him to climb in and shutting the door behind him. He gave a final wave and started back up the building's steps.

"Where to kid?" the taxi driver asked pulling away from the curb. He hesitated only a moment before giving Kuroba's address rather than his own mansion residence. The less his father and Baaya knew about what he'd just done, the better a plausible deniability plea would go if he was caught in order to protect his father's reputation. He slumped down in his seat, giving in to bad posture while he contemplated how Kuroba was going to hang this over his head if he found out.

"I must be out of my mind," he mumbled to himself in a voice too small to be heard over the cabby's radio.

Kaito lay back on his futon, watching Conan turn pages in the thick Night Baron volume out of the corner of his eye, the first time he'd had to relax since the beginning of the tumultuous events the fire had started. Hakuba was gone and out of his hair at work and little Kudo's friend had left to run 'some errands' as the detective had told them with a shaky laugh. Conan had leveled a suspicious frown at Heiji but said nothing letting the Osakan leave in peace. Well if the kid didn't think whatever had bothered him was important enough to say anything, he would trust his judgment.

"I can read better if you'd stop staring at me," Conan muttered quietly, turning another page and keeping his eyes on the book.

"Sorry," Kaito said biting back a grin and shifting his gaze to his ceiling. He let the silence between them stretch while Conan read through a few more pages. "Why did you say your dad wrote that about my dad?" he finally asked.

"Because I think he did," Conan answered smoothly without breaking his reading. "He started writing it right after your father's funeral."

"But that doesn't mean anything. It could just be a coincidence," Kaito replied with a frown.

"When is your birthday?" Conan asked absently. "June?"

"Yeah, June twenty-first. How'd you know?" Kaito asked in genuine surprise.

"You've never been around my father when he's writing but he's about as reliable meeting a deadline as Kogoro-jisan is at solving cases," Conan replied with a self-amused snort. "Worse even. I kind of feel sorry for his editors having to chase him and mom all over the world to get manuscripts out of him. Except for Night Baron." He closed the book around a finger marking his page and lay the book flat on his chest to look the thief in the eye. "Night Baron is the only deadline he's ever met consistently. A new volume is released every year in June."

Kaito stared at him wordlessly for a few minutes. "Yeah, but still that doesn't necessarily mean anything special."

"I'm also fairly sure my dad knew your father was Kaitou Kid," Conan continued, laying his hand over the book's cover just above where he had left the crumpled note. Kaito locked eyes with him again in surprise.

"If he knew, why didn't he catch him?" he asked quietly.

"With my dad, who knows?" Conan muttered opening the book again. "One of these days you should ask him."

Kaito lay in silence, staring at the boy, but Conan seemed set on reading quietly and ignoring him so he returned his gaze to his ceiling with a frown. He had never really thought of the book series having anything to do with his father's night job or the fact that he had always counted on his birthday for a new volume to the series… but the idea was still a little too incredible that one of his favorite series was being written with him and his father in mind. He rolled over to grab Aoko's bear from under his desk where he'd been stashed while the room was crowded and hugged it tight, breathing in the calming scent of peaches and curled on his side, trying to decide if he had enough time for a short nap.

They both froze at the sound of tires screeching nearby, and the deep rumble of a V8 engine powering down. "Is that from your driveway?" Conan asked cautiously.

With a smooth roll up to standing, Kaito silently sidled up alongside the window and took a cautious look outside, careful not to disturb the curtains or blinds. "There's a white car with a canvas top in our driveway," he murmured in a low voice casting a questioning look Conan's way.

"A Mercedes?" Conan asked.

Kaito raised an eyebrow and turned to fully face him. "Looks like it," he replied, "Friends of yours?"

"The FBI," Conan muttered, shoving himself higher on the mound of pillows.

"I can't believe I actually feel relieved hearing that," Kaito muttered moving away from the window. They both froze at the soft chime of a cell phone's text messenger.

"It's not me," Conan muttered after checking his two phones. Kaito pulled out his own phone and frowned at the screen. "Something wrong?" Conan asked.

"I don't recognize the number," he mumbled, opening the text. Kaito stared at his phone's screen in confusion. Conan raised an eyebrow at the deep furrow between the thief's eyes.

"What does it say?" he asked.

"It doesn't say anything," Kaito said turning the phone so he could read the screen, "It's just a question mark."

Conan's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Reply with an exclamation point," he said quickly, rolling over onto his stomach.

"Why?" Kaito muttered, staring at him suspiciously.

"Just do it," Conan returned sounding exasperated while he carefully slid off the bed.

Kaito complied keeping a curious eye on the little detective who was already walking out the door. He followed after, raising an eyebrow watching Conan cling to the stair rails while he made his way down the stairs, full of stiff muscles and a light limp. Within seconds of pressing 'send' on his phone, there was a loud knock on his door. The swift purposeful kind of knock he associated with the few nightmares he'd had when the police had finally tracked him down that would have had him panicking three days ago. By the time he reached the foyer, Conan was already waiting impatiently at the front door.

"Hurry up!" Conan demanded, switching his weight from foot to foot anxiously.

"Then why don't you open it," Kaito muttered, purposely slowing his pace just a tad more in retaliation for whatever new secret the shrimp was keeping from him with this question mark exclamation point business.

"Because I can't reach," Conan retorted, wrapping his arms around himself and his sore ribs.

Kaito bit back a smirk at the myriad of short jokes he could have made just then but wisely kept quiet, reaching above Conan's head to open the door. He smiled politely seeing the blonde FBI agent on his doorstep. "Jodie-san."

"Good afternoon, Kuroba-kun. I brought the paperwork you need to sign," she said with a pleasant smile despite her serious expression and gesturing to the thick folder she was carrying, "and I brought someone who needs to speak with you." She stepped aside and Kaito noticed the older gentleman behind her for the first time. The man was opening his mouth to say something when Conan finally wedged himself past Kaito's legs.

"James-san!" he greeted happily in what Kaito identified as his 'Conan' voice.

"Oh, it's nice to see you Conan-kun," the man called 'James' replied to the child standing at his knees. "Jodie tells me you're the one who brought this to our attention. Thank you for helping us again."

Conan looked up at Kaito with a cheeky grin. "This is James Black. He's the head of the FBI's investigation on the Black Organization."

"You must be Kaito-kun," James said with a jovial smile, "It's certainly a pleasure to meet Toichi-kun's boy."

"Right… ah," Kaito replied with a great deal more trepidation in the face of two people who should probably be arresting him. "Umm… p-please, come in." Conan gave him an odd look in the face of his sudden attack of shyness.

"Thank you," Jodie replied kindly with an understanding smile at Kaito's stammering. She gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder as she stepped inside. "And don't worry, everything is going to be okay. You can trust us," she said softly.

Kaito relaxed a little, dropping the tension he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying in his shoulders. He ignored the know-it-all look on Conan's face who'd heard the exchange. "Please follow me," he said to the two agents leading them to the dining room where the two started pulling paperwork from folders and arranging files. "Can I get you two something to drink? Coffee maybe?"

"That would be fine. Thank you," Jodie replied and smiled watching Kaito dash out of the room. "I think we make him nervous," she said in a quiet aside to Conan.

Conan gave an amused snort in return. "He has spent most of his time avoiding the police," he muttered, pulling out a chair opposite James. "That aside… it was you who sent that text a few minutes ago, right?" he asked the elder agent.

James gave him a peculiar look for a moment. "You were the one who answered?" he asked calmly. "You understand its meaning?"

Conan nodded, watching him just as carefully. "I have an idea. It's a code, right? I take it you're going to explain that?" he asked.

"That was my intention," he replied. He looked up in surprise at the entrance seeing Kaito looking at the two of them warily from behind the tray of coffee cups he was holding.

"What code?" he asked in quiet demand, looking as though he couldn't quite decide whether to enter the room or start backing up. He gave Conan a sharp glare for hiding something from him that Conan answered with an annoyed sigh, resting his chin on his hand and a roll of his eyes.

"My apologies, I never heard you coming," James said with a friendly smile. "Your father was quite fond of doing that too," he finished gesturing for Kaito to take a seat.

"You… knew dad?" Kaito asked, forgetting his earlier trepidation and taking a seat next to Conan, passing out the coffee. "And what's this code you were talking about?"

"The text with the question mark," Conan said, "He was testing to see if you knew what you were supposed to answer with. Right?" He fixed James with a testy frown.

"You've got me, Conan-kun," he said with a conspiratorial grin.

"What's that mean? Testing what?" Kaito asked, looking back and forth between the two.

"Would you please begin the explanation, Conan-kun?" James asked, "I'm a bit curious to see how much you know."

Conan gave a curt nod, taking a sip of coffee while he organized his thoughts. "Ah… it's a story I heard from Shinichi-niisan," he started, giving Kaito a sharp look to stay silent. "When we… I mean he was six, he and Ran-neechan snuck into school at night to investigate some rumor that a ghost was haunting the library. But the one they met was your dad," he said. He paused slightly realizing Kaito was perched forward in his chair, drinking in his every word. "…ah… w-he didn't know who the man was at the time, he wasn't wearing the um… outfit. He challenged them to a series of scavenger hunt type searches. I think he was expecting Shinichi-niisan to ask his dad for help. It was probably him he was trying to reach to begin with. They solved his challenges but Shinichi-niisan messed up the last one involving a wallet. It wasn't until recently that he found the note Kaitou Kid hid." He looked directly at Kaito. "A square piece of paper with only a question mark on it." He stared at Kaito meaningfully. Kaito's eyes lit up in realization. "I found the answering message Shinichi-niisan's dad sent yours," Conan continued, "you were using it as bookmark in your Night Baron book."

"…an exclamation point," Kaito finished. "I found that note in one of dad's drawers when I helped mom box up all of his things."

Conan gave a sage nod and turned to James. "Shinichi-niisan's dad sent that answering note even though he never received the first note from the original Kaitou Kid. He knew just who to send it to. He must have already known that Kuroba Toichi, the magician, was Kaitou Kid. But from what Shinichi-niisan told me, he only went along on Kid heists if Megure-keibu insisted and he would have been going knowing the whole time who he really was. Why did he keep it secret?" he demanded of the calm FBI director.

"From what I remember, it was out of deference to his wife in the beginning," he said between sips of coffee. "She was a student of Toichi-kun's. Kudo-san had actually figured out Kaitou Kid's identity some time ago." Kaito gave a small huff behind his own cup. "But by the time Toichi-kun tried to contact Kudo-san, he had already been hunting jewels for several months."

"How do you know m… uh… Kudo-san?" Conan asked curiously.

"Because of my father," Jodie said, giving Kaito a gentle smile. "I think the next part of this story is mine." She took a sip of coffee while she organized her thoughts. "When the bureau first started looking into the organization about fifteen years ago, it was because of my father's investigation. He was the first to detect their presence and the first to identify one of their lead agents who had become active in the States, an assassin called Vermouth." Kaito nodded slowly, all ears listening to her story. Next to him Conan was also paying strict attention having never heard this part of the FBI's involvement before. "Of course at the time, he didn't know how big an organization he was searching for. All he had was an alias of a lone assassin possibly working on orders from higher up. He and his partner, James, were placed in charge of the investigation," she said with a tilt of her head to the man sitting next to her. "But at the time, we still had no idea where the organization was based out of. And we weren't making any headway because our informants kept disappearing. My father finally asked one of his old friends for advice on the investigation, a famous mystery author and detective, Kudo Yusaku. That was how Kudo-san was introduced to James and became aware of our investigation. …That was three weeks before my father was killed by Vermouth. I suppose he got too close." She was finding it harder and harder to keep her lips from trembling and James finally placed a comforting hand over her trembling fingers gripping the coffee cup.

"That's enough. I'll take it from here," James said kindly. Jodie gave him a grateful smile and answering nod. "A year or so later," James began, continuing the story. "Kudo-san contacted us that he had been approached by someone, a living witness, who might be able to provide us with information. He informed us of his contact's um… situation, so we made a deal of full indemnity for his testimony. It was then that Kudo-san introduced us to Kuroba Toichi."

He picked up a stapled bundle of papers and passed them across the table to Kaito. Kaito looked over the top sheet, full of his father's elegant handwriting, signing himself as a federal witness for the FBI. Next to him, Conan stood on his knees on the chair to read over his arm. Kaito reverently ran a hand lightly over the page.

"Your father brought us his story about his mysterious former employer and what they were searching for. It was the first time we had someone who could identify faces of people directly involved and provide aliases. It was because of Toichi-kun's own investigating that we finally identified not only what country the organization was operating out of but down to the prefecture as well. We made all the arrangements for a full pardon in exchange for his testimony, we even made contacts in Interpol to have his record completely expunged."

Kaito looked up at him in surprise at that. "Then… he would have been free?" he asked hesitantly.

"Just about," James said with a fatherly smile. "We had full plans to bargain with whoever we needed to. He was the best thing that happened to our investigation. We were dead in the water before his help." He took another sip of coffee before restarting his tale. "The minute he signed on with us, we offered to place him and his family in protective custody. Witness Protection was ready the minute he said 'go' to hide all of you… but he refused. He argued that he would be of more use trying to find that gem they were looking for, learning what he could about them from their occasional encounters, and sending us updates as he found more information. He also refused any of our help worried our presence would tip them off. The reconnaissance he provided eventually led to us successfully planting an undercover agent in their upper echelon."

Kaito gave a small proud smile looking back down to the stack of papers bearing his father's name, his father's handwriting. He surreptitiously used the corner of his shirtsleeve to wipe away the tears welling up in his eyes. "Dad… did all that?" he asked softly.

"Your father was a brave man," Jodie said delicately, pulling out her handkerchief from her purse and handing it across the table to Kaito.

"What was the code used for?" Conan asked, politely ignoring Kaito until he could get himself composed.

"That?" James gave a small chuckle. "Toichi-kun once told me that it was how he and Kudo-san used to challenge each other but it later became a code for requesting a meeting with each other in the early days of his trying to find someone he could trust with what he had discovered. We adopted the same as a set of passwords for meeting up safely. Of course, back then it was used with actual notes and hidden messages written in chalk since mobile phones had no such ability back then. We had a set series of locations we used for passing messages. Whoever was requesting a meeting would leave a question mark and if the other was able to meet, an exclamation point was left. If a meeting was set, it was always at the location we had used for passing the message at 4:01pm at his insistence."

Kaito straightened abruptly. "4:01?"

"Yes, do you happen to know why?" James asked curiously. "I've always been curious."

"That's what time I was born at," he mumbled behind a blush.

"Your dad was sweet," Conan retorted with a grin, "The sentimental type?"

"Zip it," Kaito hissed back under his breath.

"Anyhow," James continued with a conspicuous clearing of his throat, "We plan on offering you the same deal. Full protection and pardon for your help. It does mean of course, that you will have to give up all ties to the alias and persona of Kaitou Kid after the trial. Until then, I'm willing to overlook anything you do as a sanctioned FBI operation in the investigation of the organization, within reason."

"When the pardon comes into effect, the organization will be gone, right?" Kaito asked, his eyes begging confirmation of the elder man. James nodded silently. Kaito stared at the table for a moment while his hand absently slid back and forth over his father's file. "Where do I sign?" he finally said in a quiet solemn voice. Jodie slid a large stack of paperwork across the table. Next to him, Conan gave a tired smile and gave up his chair so Jodie could more readily direct Kaito through the complicated forms. He walked over to James' side of the table quietly sipping his coffee and watching Kaito follow his father's footsteps.

"You remind me of Kudo-san," James said suddenly with an amused smile. Conan stiffened, watching the elder man carefully. "You know the strangest people," he finished with a nod to Kaito who was busy signing a giant stack of forms in triplicate. "It seems as though history is repeating itself all over again," he murmured. "Do you think he'll listen to us about protective custody anymore than his father did?"

"Probably not," Conan answered with a wry grin.

"All this time, and he's inherited his father's search for that wretched crystal," James mused.

"Do you think it's real?" Conan asked lightly, drinking his coffee.

"The stone's supposed power? How can such a thing really exist," James muttered with a heavy sigh. "But I've seen people kill for crazier things." Conan made a non-committal sound and started to work himself onto the chair Jodie had vacated. "And how are you doing, Conan-kun? Jodie told me about your injuries," he asked with an amused grin watching the boy try and climb on a chair that was chest high to him with one hand preoccupied with his coffee. He finally reached over, lifting the boy from under his arms and setting him on the chair rather than watching him struggle. He frowned feeling the thick layer of bandaging under the concealing pajama top.

"Thanks," Conan muttered with an embarrassed burn crossing his nose.

"Are you sure you don't want us to arrange for a doctor to examine you? Someone discrete?" James asked in concern. "We still have contact information for that doctor in Beika we had in protective custody."

"NO!" Conan cried a little too loudly as Kaito and Jodie looked up at him from their work. "…um… no, that's okay," Conan answered with a bright innocent smile. "Kaito-niisan did a good job taking care of me," he said registering Kaito's slight shudder at the childish nickname with an inner snicker.

James gave a satisfied nod. "And what was this about retrieving a computer from an office before the building burned?" he asked in a low voice.

Conan's eyes lit up in sudden remembrance. "Right, a hard drive. We were able to crack it."

"Anything we can use?" James asked in a tense anticipatory voice.

"Yes, we found plenty of data on their business dealings. We even found their payroll files for the last seven decades," Conan replied in an excited whisper.

"Can you bring the information you found to us tomorrow?" James asked with a pleased grin.

"No problem, we'll make copies of everything tonight," Conan replied.

"Alright, we're currently based out of the Haido City Hotel, room 258," James said, "We also need to get that hard drive booked into evidence. Can we take it with us?"

"It's in delicate condition because of the fire and the roof collapse," Conan muttered, "It would probably be safest just to put the entire tower in evidence. I'll have to ask Hakuba-niichan if we can, it's his computer."

"Then we'll discuss this tomorrow," James said standing up after exchanging a nod with Jodie who was packing up her paperwork. "Is this Hakuba-san involved in this investigation?"

"Yes," Conan said firmly.

"Jodie did say you had a few people working on this. Bring him by tomorrow. I'd like to meet the people working on this case," James said to him before reaching across the table to shake Kaito's hand. "Welcome to working for the FBI, Kid-kun," he said with a smile.

Kaito shook his hand firmly with a serious expression. "Thanks… um… for telling me… all that," he mumbled.

Next to him, Jodie gave him a gentle smile, "Told you everything would be okay." Kaito smiled back and politely walked them to the front door.

"Conan-kun, bring everyone you've involved in this investigation by tomorrow," James said as they were walking out. "We may as well read everyone in at the same time."

"Okay," Conan said watching them load their car from the safety of the front door going only as far as the tiled entrance let his bare feet sporting fading bruises and toe splint go. Kaito waited in the driveway, waving off the two agents, watching the Mercedes-Benz disappear around a corner of his street when Conan called out to him. "We've got more company," he yelled to the thief pointing down the street in the opposite direction.

Kaito looked out, shielding his eyes from the light of the setting sun. "Hakuba?" he called out to the figure walking their way hidden behind a towering stack of file boxes.

"A little help!" the person behind the pile called out. Kaito left Conan in the doorway to grab the top most boxes from Hakuba's stack.

"What is all this?" he asked the blonde detective following Hakuba's march to the front door.

"Something I'm working on," Hakuba muttered. "I'm borrowing your place for storage."

"What?!" Kaito exclaimed following after him. At the door, Conan backed up to let them both in, casting Kaito a questioning look.

"What are you working on?" Conan asked following, well mostly limping, to the dining room they had just left, watching Hakuba stack the file boxes against a corner.

"I've been finding discrepancies while I was working in Archives," he muttered. "Discrepancies in the files of cases you identified as having to do with the organization." He looked up and noticed the worried expression on Conan's face. "Don't worry about it too much, Conan-kun. It's probably nothing. I'll let you know if I find anything significant."

Conan gave a solemn nod from the dining room entrance watching Kaito and Hakuba arrange boxes to the blonde's preferences. He hid a smirk when they both jumped like frightened cats, Hakuba dropping and spilling the contents of one of the file boxes, at the ensuing loud knock on the door. "Relax, it's just Heiji-niichan," he stated matter-of-factly, abandoning them to their task and limping to the door. "And what are you so jumpy about?" he asked the overly tense blonde without waiting for an answer.

"Stop with the 'niichan' business! It's creepy!" Kaito called after him. He bent down to help Hakuba pick up the spilled folders. "And he's right," he continued in a more muted voice. "It's not like you to be this touchy. What'd you do? Steal these?" he asked in a teasing voice, opening the topmost folder in his stack and taking a peek at the file that was crossed with heavy black lines. His eyes quickly absorbed the file number at the top and moved on to the rest of the report. "I mean of the two of us, you've got no right to be spooked, I'm the one who's neck deep in detectives and FBI agents and…"

Hakuba rudely snatched the folder out of his hands before he could read anything further. "No I did not!" he hissed back, returning the folder to his box and closing it before Kaito could get a better look at the contents.

"… …is there something you need to tell us?" Kaito asked with a raised eyebrow to Hakuba's territorial glare over his file boxes.

Realizing what he must look like, Hakuba forced the tension out of his shoulders, making himself relax. "I don't know yet. Just something odd I found about some old cases. I thought I could borrow this room from you tonight and check over some things."

"Sure, why not," Kaito muttered sitting back down in his earlier seat and taking a swig of lukewarm coffee. "It's just detective central around here anyway."

Conan dashed for the front door as quickly as his bruised toes would let him. He frowned in puzzlement when he actually reached the door and realized the doorknob was no lower than it had been when Jodie and James had come by and that no one had followed him from the dining room. He looked around for something to help and finally settled on laying the Kuroba's umbrella stand on its side so he could unlock the door. He jumped off just in time, as Heiji opened the door in the quick sudden way of his and even managed to perform an impromptu one-footed jig filled with a month's worth of soap-in-mouth washing's collection of curse words for the Osakan detective. "Can't you ever open the door like a civilized human being!" he yelled at the detective, once his toes were down to a dull throb, who looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh at him.

"Ah, sorry Kudo," Heiji apologized, bending down to fix the umbrella stand the door had pushed aside. "I thought it was Kuroba at the door."

Conan dropped his glare in favor of an irritated huff. "So how did your meeting with the police go? You sure took a while reporting in."

Heiji's eyes widened in surprise. "You… uh… you found out?" he asked guiltily, backing up against the door in case the shrunken detective was hiding plans of kicking him.

"I did now," Conan answered leaning back against the coat closet door and crossing his arms over his chest. He fixed his so-called friend with a sharp withering gaze. "Your face always gives you away when you're feeling guilty about something, like after that phone call you took yesterday. And you just happen to be in Tokyo looking for me the day after I wound up here? Kogoro-jisan was on a case in Chiba at the time and Ran was out of town on a school trip. Agasa-hakase couldn't have found out I was missing in that frame of time. Who called you to look for me?"

"…uhhh…"

"Was it Sato-keiji or Takagi-keiji, at least?" Conan asked, balling his hands into fists under the cover of his crossed arms to force away their anxious trembling. 'Please let it just be one of them looking for me!' he pleaded silently.

"…a-ahh… S-Sato-keiji," Heiji admitted guiltily with a hang-dog expression.

Conan gave in inward sigh of relief. "So it's just them?"

"Ah, and Yamato-keibu and that widow we met during the Fuurinkazan case," Heiji added.

Conan raised an eyebrow at the confirming news. "So the two of them really are involved in all this. What's going on at their end?"

"With everything that was happening here, I completely forgot," Heiji muttered dropping into a matching pose opposite Conan. "They've found out! They know about the organization!"

"Damn! I knew they were close, but I thought I'd have more time before they actually got that far," Conan mused with a frown.

"They've found a cache of evidence from one of the Mahjong case victims but they won't let me near it," Heiji muttered with an annoyed frown. "I don't think they trust me since I haven't told 'em where ya've been hiding."

"An evidence cache?!" Conan exclaimed. "I may have to arrange a meeting with the FBI for them soon before they wind up deeper than they can handle."

"Me they won't let near their files, but you they can't wait to look at that stuff," Heiji griped in a low mumble, still in his fit of frustrated annoyance. "Hey! That reminds me!" He advanced on the still unsuspecting Conan lost in his own musings. He grabbed a fistful of pajama top lifting Conan off his feet to give him a few mid-air shakes. "What the hell were ya thinking jumping off 'a Touto Tower, you aho!"

"…ah …Hey! …Stop it!" Conan yelled, trying to grab onto Heiji's hand holding him up to shift the weight of his body from around his shoulders. "That hurts you baka!"

From the dining room, Hakuba poked his head out and Kaito leaned his chair back, hooking his toes on the table's apron, so they could see them from the hallway. "If you break him, I'm not fixing him again," Kaito called looking most unamused at their tiff. "I am not going through that again."

"What are they arguing about?" Hakuba asked Kaito in a low voice.

"I have no idea," Kaito muttered balancing his mug of coffee on his chest, pointedly continuing his observation of the two.

With a huff of annoyance at their audience, Heiji lowered Conan back to the floor but still holding him tight against the wall and dropped to a crouch in front of him to block out the two from the dining room. "What were ya even thinking trying something that crazy!?" he hissed in a lowered voice. "That was stupid and suicidal!"

"It's not like I had any other options at the time!" Conan hissed back, equally aware of their unashamed audience. "It worked didn't it!"

"One of these times you're not gonna get lucky and it's gonna be me explaining everything to 'Neechan," Heiji returned in as quiet a voice he could. "You remember that." He released Conan from his pin but kept the boy under his angry glare while Conan straightened his clothes looking at least somewhat subdued. Knowing that was likely the best he could hope for by ways of an apology from the arrogant brat for scaring the crap out of him when he saw that video, he settled for burning holes in the top of the twerp's head while he got himself back together.

"Hey… How… umm… how did you even know about that?" Conan asked in a quiet unobtrusive voice before Heiji stood up.

Heiji held his angry glare and frown a moment longer and Conan was about to start fidgeting from his own nerves, it was the first time Heiji had ever held something over his head he had full right to and it felt horribly uncomfortable, when the Osakan finally relented. "Sato-keiji and them, they have a copy of the security footage from that night. They saw everything that happened with you and 'Neechan at the tower. They showed me all of it." Conan's eyes widened in shock and he looked away from the sympathy creeping into Heiji's eyes and face realizing everything he must have seen. "And they know 'Kudo' was never there." Conan looked back up sharply at that. "It's okay, they didn't make the connection," Heiji said quickly, reassuring him. "They think 'Kudo' is covering for you. But they are awfully worried about ya. I think you need to stop avoiding them. I figured I'd wait until you were feeling okay but I can't play interference forever."

"I know," Conan muttered, "and thanks by the way. I'll call them after we get our own evidence to Jodie-sensei tomorrow." He pushed himself off the wall and started for the dining room where their two eavesdroppers were still watching them.

"They did the paperwork stuff today?" he asked following after him.

"Yup, he's official now," he said walking past Kaito to his chair and to his own mug. "Found out some surprising things about his dad… and mine. I'll fill you in later."

"Show's over?" Kaito asked still hanging upside down over the back of his chair watching Heiji follow the kid without a trace of his earlier anger as if the two had never even argued.

"That coffee?" Heiji asked pointing at the mug on Kaito's chest.

"There should be more in the kitchen," Kaito mumbled while he righted himself and returned all four chair feet to the floor. "Help yourself."

"Want any?" Heiji asked Hakuba now that he could pass unimpeded to the living room and connecting kitchen without a Kaito barrier in the way.

"No thank you, I prefer my drinking a touch more refined. Not that American swill," he answered over his shoulder opening one of his boxes and pulling out his school satchel from where he'd stashed it.

Heiji growled to himself just loud enough for Kaito and Conan to hear and muffle their own snickers knowing quite well that Hakuba had no idea Heiji was glaring daggers into his back. "Green hair, green hair," Heiji mumbled under his breath leaving them all for the kitchen.

"Say, have you figured out how you're going to fix your mother's phone?" Hakuba asked off-handedly.

"Don't remind me," Kaito said, deflating rapidly.

"Here. I found this on an old phone we had in the attic." Hakuba pulled a long, yellowed with age, curly phone cord from his school satchel. "It's not the same model but it's from the right time period," he said dropping the cord on the table in front of Kaito.

"Thanks for the thought, Hakuba, but she's still gonna know. It's her precious phone and all," Kaito muttered burying his head in his arms. "I'm grounded. I'm grounded for life."

"What's so special about a telephone?" Conan grumbled testily, raising an eyebrow at Kaito's pout.

"It's an antique," Hakuba explained. "He cut the cord when I tried to call an ambulance for you." He rolled his eyes at Kaito and sat himself cattycorner from the depressed thief. "She's not coming home for another week, right? We can try some of the antique stores in town. Maybe we can find a closer match."

"It's not gonna matter. She'll know I messed up her phone," Kaito murmured from deep in the nest of his arms. "She won't even let me dust it," he whined, surfacing from his arm cave.

"I think your mom's way too attached to her things," Heiji muttered, joining them at the table.

"It was a gift from one of her friends who died a couple of years ago, a while after dad. A prop from one of her movies that she kept," he explained. "Mom was such a big fan of hers." Next to him, Conan tensed, a feeling of dread dropping from his stomach down to his toes. Instinctively, he sought out Heiji's eyes who frowned noticing the frozen expression on the shrunken detective's face.

"I didn't know your mother knew movie stars," Hakuba mused offhandedly.

"One of Dad's old students," Kaito replied, "There's a picture over the sink in the kitchen." After an exchange of eyes with Conan, Heiji wordlessly put his drink down on the table and disappeared back into the kitchen. "Along with this one's mom," he gestured with his head to Conan, "who's scary, by the way. She became a famous actress of stage and screen in America, Sharon Vinyard."

The color drained from Conan's face and he turned, overcome by the most surreal slow-motioning of time, to the newly emerged Heiji standing in the doorway who looked just as grim. Heiji pulled a black-framed photo from behind his back and held it steady for him to see against his chest. The world famous magician and soon to be murdered Kuroba Toichi with his wife and rambunctious child smiled back at him next to his smiling, waving mother and a woman who's image sent shivers down his spine.

"Your mother was friends with Sharon Vinyard?!" Hakuba asked incredulously, oblivious of the silent exchange passing between his fellow detectives.

Kaito nodded back. "Know her?" he asked, taking in Hakuba's expression of shocked amazement with secret pride.

"I know of her," Hakuba continued, "The Golden Apple was genius and she was set to receive the Academy Honorary Award at the Oscars the year she passed. She was the first to be given the award post-humously since the 70's. It was a huge uproar that year."

Hakuba gave him a look that was part pity and part amusement. "That phone would have gone to auction at tens of thousands if not hundreds through Christie's. Your mother is going to kill you," he finished, trying not to laugh at Kaito's growing pout.

"Kuroba."

Kaito and Hakuba paused in their discussion at the sheer chill in Conan's voice and noticed for the first time the somber mood between him and the Osakan detective in the doorway.

"Have you ever used that phone to discuss 'business' with your partner?" Conan asked, fixing the thief with a deathly still glare.

Kaito opened his mouth to give the seven-year-old a snarky remark about prying that likely involved curiosity and cats but shut his mouth abruptly noticing the twin stares coming from the two detectives of east and west and the dangerously still atmosphere surrounding them both. "…N-No, I don't think so. Why?"

Conan held his gaze a moment longer, searching… searching for any tell that Kuroba had unwittingly tipped off the organization in any way. "And your father, did he use that phone?"

"Yeah. She gave it to my mom and dad on their anniversary, their last one before dad di… passed," Kaito answered, exchanging a questioning look of confusion with Hakuba to see if he knew what was going on between the two. Hakuba answered Kaito with a subtle shake of his head.

Conan exchanged one last look of desperate dread with Heiji and pushed himself away from the table, ignoring his painfully sore muscles and rushing to the living room as quickly as his body would let him, Heiji following after him, stopping only to drop the picture he was carrying on the dining room table. Kaito paused, glancing down at the picture he hadn't noticed the Kansai detective had, recognizing the picture he had shown Aoko only a couple of days ago. Hakuba sent him a questioning look, wondering what significance the two had found in a conversation about a piece of Hollywood memorabilia. Kaito was in the middle of returning a bewildered shrug when they both heard a discordant tonal 'ching' in the midst of a small crash coming from the living room.

"Not mom's phone!?" Kaito murmured with a miserable whine, dashing out into the hallway, Hakuba close at his heels.

Conan ignored the entryway cordless phone searching for something unique enough to match Kaito and Hakuba's earlier discussion. He stopped in the living room spotting the pink, gold, and mother-of-pearl inlay rotary phone sitting innocently on an embroidered doily near the kitchen entrance. A closer inspection revealed two flat lines cut into the wall, one above the other, both card-width in size.

"That's it?" Heiji asked from the living room entrance.

Rather than answering, Conan grabbed the broken length of phone cord hanging down the side of the end table and gave a violent yank, pulling the phone to the floor with a noisy cacophonous sound of ringer chimes and small metal parts. The base of the telephone separated on contact with the floor and Conan gave it a light kick rolling the phone on its side and exposing the workings. He crouched down, still careful of the whip-lashed pain in his neck and started digging through wiring.

"What are you doing to my mom's phone?!" Kaito yelled, crowding Heiji in the doorway with Hakuba right behind him. Heiji grabbed onto him preventing him from advancing on the shrunken detective, who was blithely ignoring them all, intent on his search, and trapping Hakuba behind them.

"Let 'im work," Heiji said firmly, reinforcing his grip on the wiry teen trying to worm his way past and after Conan. "It needs to be done."

"The hell are you talking about?!" Kaito asked frantically, trying to break through past the Osakan. "That's a priceless antique he's ruining!"

"That ya got from Sharon Vinyard!" Heiji shot back. Kaito stopped struggling to glare at him.

"That's been established," Hakuba spoke up from behind them. "What's the problem?"

Heiji held Kaito's glare calmly and finally looked away with a heavy sigh looking back to Conan who had the phone receiver between his knees while he unscrewed the speaking end.

"Sharon Vinyard… aka Chris Vinyard," Heiji muttered gently looking back at Kaito, realizing the blow his next words would likely be to the second-generation phantom thief. "…also known as…"

"Vermouth," Conan finished grimly, holding up his prize for Kaito to see from over Heiji's shoulder. A small piece of circuitry they could all recognize.

Kaito stared in cold shock at the bug a solemn Conan was holding. "…what?!" he managed to gasp out even as his legs he hadn't realized were shaking dropped him to the floor leaving him to hang from his wrists in Heiji's grip, staring with empty eyes at the listening device.

"That's impossible!" Hakuba exclaimed stepping up behind Kaito and placing a firm hand on the stunned thief's shoulder, glaring at Heiji and Conan in turn. "Sharon was in her late forties when she died. The actress Chris Vineyard is in her early twenties. They can't be the same person. That's a scientific impossibility."

"I know," Conan answered matching Hakuba's angry glare defiantly. "Chris Vinyard's emergence predates the invention of apotoxin. That fact used to trouble me and the FBI too." He dropped his gaze to Kaito who was staring helplessly at Conan with desperate searching eyes. "But not anymore. There is a way such a thing is possible." Kaito's eyes widened in horror in instant understanding studying Conan's firm gaze of affirmation.

"Pandora."

The name fell unbidden from his lips. His eyes dropped to the floor while every emotion he had felt from the moment the shrieks had started in the theatre when the audience had first realized something was wrong during his dad's last trick to the funeral and more recently when Jii had finally told him his father's true fate, every terror, fear, hatred and fury washed over him leaving him flushed and burning in perspiration and freezingly chilled to the core all at the same time while he hung limply not even noticing Heiji had long lowered him to his knees on the floor ages ago. He started feeling a cool hand on his forehead, looking up abruptly into Conan's piercing blue eyes, he hadn't even heard the little detective walk up to him, searching him in quiet worry. He looked up and around wildly at an openly distraught Heiji who was still holding him upright by the wrists and at the deep concern in Hakuba's eyes above and behind him… and for the first time in his young adult life, Kaito openly, bitterly… cried.

~fin~

AN:

A RETRACTION: My deepest apologies to the people of Chicago. I wrote chapter 5(8) with the assumption that Heiji was a Boston Red Sox fan. After actually doing research on his baseball cap, I realize my mistake. I totally forgot about Chicago. My bad. Mea culpa. Heiji is actually a Chicago White Sox fan, his cap is meant to represent the White Sox. I am now 100 percent certain of this & will swear to it on my stack of Conan manga. The Red Sox have used the letter 'B' on their caps since the late 1800s early 1900s. I suck at baseball, I really do. I have gone back & fixed any chapters that I screwed up on. Again, sorry Chicago & any White Sox fans reading this. I site "Baseball: An Illustrated History" by-Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns & "Who's on Third? The Chicago White Sox Story" by-Richard Lindberg as my sources.

Sorry this chapter was so late. For those who didn't read my profile, we had a death in the family & I was preoccupied elsewhere. Things are better now and I have more time to dedicate on writing again. That's really all I have to say on that.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building or Tocho for short is referred to as Tokyo City Hall. It's located in Shinjuku and consists of three buildings. As to whether the police commissioner of Tokyo would have an office there or housing Archives, that is my own bullshitting. However, I wrote that section first and then looked up the building and it really does have a three level sub-basement. Hitsuzen is awesome.

Going Linux: At first I don't even know why I chose to make the Organization Linux based. My own experience with it is limited to a very few passes of Novell and I am by no means an expert or even knowledgeable person as far as Linux goes. More like the extreme opposite. But the more I looked into it the better a fit it seemed. As most of all viruses and hack jobs are Windows based, Linux is much safer an OS to use as far as security goes. It's excellent for the forming and running of large-scale servers, which I'm sure the organization has. And most importantly for my purposes, Linux is very much based in the open-source community and encourages the making and sharing of one's own programs. The Black Organization, which certainly has its hands very deeply in the programming field, can create all their own programs to run whatever they want without leaving any sort of paper trail for what computer programs they use unlike if they were Windows based, somewhere there would be a trail of them purchasing Microsoft Office or whatever they decided to use. Plus I can make up whatever I need for their computers to do without completely bullshitting. So… Yay Linux! (And thanks Rynok and Taichman for teaching me (trying anyways) Linux)

PuTTY is a program (the way it was explained to me) that can tunnel into a Unix system running Linux (Hakuba's tower) from a Microsoft OS (Kaito's tower) in effect slaving a Linux drive through Windows. Kaito and the group can look into the Linux drive from the safety of Kaito's computer and if for any reason they trigger the Night Baron virus on the stolen drive, the virus can't infect Kaito's computer, the flow of data is only one way, they can look at the drive but the drive can't infect the Microsoft tower. Hakuba's tower running the stolen drive would be toast though.

A dictionary attack is a way to find a password by searching through a list of common words (like running through every word in a dictionary) and common variations of those words that someone might use in choosing a password. The success of a dictionary attack relies on people's tendency to pick short passwords (under ten characters) for their computer programs. With longer passwords, a dictionary attack might take weeks or even months to crack an encryption.

TrueCrypt is an unofficial freeware program (Linux wouldn't approve it under the open source initiative) that makes instantly created encryptions, on-the-fly encryptions for files, partitions or the entire storage device. According to wikipedia, in 2010 the FBI tried dictionary attacks against disks protected by TrueCrypt for twelve months after the Brazilian National Institute of Criminology tried for five months during Operation Satyagraha but were unable to break the encryption. I figured this was a perfect program for the Black Organization to implement to protect their systems. Passwords have been recovered from notebook computers running TrueCrypt if the computer was recovered while in power-on, suspended, or screen-locked mode by running certain algorithms on the DRAM or by using the Stoned bootkit if TrueCrypt is run on a win32 platform like Windows. Too bad I had the Organization be Linux users. Although, since I don't use TrueCrypt myself, my depiction of TrueCrypt encrypted files as random strings and Hakuba's ability to recognize anything from the source code is my own bullshitting.

The program I have Hakuba use to crack the Black Organization encryptions exists and is called Passware Kit Forensic. It's a commercially available decryptor and the latest version can break TrueCrypt and BitLocker. It works on Linux along with Windows and Mac and can run from a portable usb device, though I figured Hakuba would be the type to prefer firewire. Tough luck, Black Organization.

Cybercrime Psychology: You may be wondering as to my depictions of Kaito and Hakuba's hack skills. I had a reason for making them so. I based their levels purely on their personal psychologies and the psychology of cybercrime. While the psychology of hacking is many and varied, true elite hackers tend to follow a certain profile that includes but is not limited to: largely male with ages 12-28, a dysfunctional upbringing, very smart but often left bored and without adult supervision, an addictive personality not so much as far as drugs but for the ability to spend hour upon hour at their keyboards an obsessive personality lets say, with a tendency towards Narcissistic Personality Disorder and arrogance. Of the two, Hakuba fits the profile much closer than Kaito. To put it simply, Kaito would lack the patience, analytical addiction/obsession, and personality type to be methodical enough to write his own hack programs. He would be far more likely to find the programs he needs to do the job he wants in the depths of IRC or WinMX. As it's pretty much the most common OS, he would specialize in Windows. And I'm sure he has programs and tools that do a great deal. But he would still be more the type to be a push-button cracker. Hakuba, on the other hand, carries the personality type to fit the kind of high level hacker that excels in the analytical and proclivity for being hyper-specific enough to know several computing languages and the technical patience for writing his own programs and tools. Linux, by its ability to let its users mold their own experience would appeal to his personality type. As far as hacking goes, by his own moral and ethical code, Hakuba would qualify as a white hat. Someone that writes, uses, and learns hacking tools, programs, and abilities for the pure sake of learning them or to stop/track/catch other hackers, for the most part. But Hakuba's strict morals would have kept him on the narrow line of keeping his use legal. By my own personality analysis of the characters and study of the episodes, I rate the boys by technical ability thus from highest to lowest: Hakuba…, Kudo, Kaito, Takagi…, Heiji. (with ellipsis in place for distance in ability, I believe Kudo, Kaito and Takagi are close in level with Takagi trailing them slightly) I consulted the book "Cybershock: Surviving Hackers, Phreakers, Identity Thieves, Internet Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Disruption" by- Winn Schwartau.

Eps Referenced: 1 Roller Coaster Murder Case, 43 Edogawa Conan Kidnapping Case, 48-9 The Diplomat Murder Case pt1-2, 68-70 The Night Baron Murder Case pt1-3, 118 The Naniwa Serial Murder Case, 129 The Girl from the Black Organization and the University Professor Murder Case, 176-8 Meeting with the Black Organization Again pt1-3, 188 The Desperate Revival: The Cavern of the Shonen Tantei, 189 The Desperate Revival: The Wounded Great Detective, 193 The Desperate Revival: The Promised Place, 277-8 English Teacher vs Great Western Detective pt1-2, 286-288 Kudo Shinichi's New York Case Pt1-3, 345 Head-to-Head Match with the Black Organization/Two Mysteries of the Night of the Full Moon, 356 Kaitou Kid's Miracle Midair Walk, 425 Black Impact! The Instant that the Black Organization Reaches, 472-3 Young Kudo Shinichi's Adventure pt1-2, 479 Three Days With Hattori Heiji, 497 Clash of Red and Black! Awakening pt7, 504 Clash of Red and Black: Killed in the Line of Duty, 516 Furinkazan The Mysterious Armored Warrior pt1, 517 Furinkazan Shadow & Lightning Conclusion pt2, 521 Murderer, Kudo Shinichi, 522 Shinichi's True Face and Ran's Tears, M10 The Private Eyes' Requiem