Chapter twenty-four
Knowledge
ooOO-OOoo

Ran shifted from one foot to the other while she waited for Satou's arrival. Looking on her wrist-watch every ten seconds, she was relieved as finally the figure of the female officer appeared in the main entrance, the clipboard in her hands.

"Here you go, Ran-san. I couldn't help but take a look through the papers. You saved this from the fire, didn't you?" She saw Ran's nod and hummed knowingly, handing it to her. "You intend to give this to the doctors, right? I don't think we should give it to them like this though. We…"

A small hand snatched the clipboard from Ran and flipped through the pages.

"For sure we can't," Ai stated without even looking at the two surprised women. "These are the complete records of the experimental trials on 'Kudou Shinichi'. I think it would be pretty hard for Hirata-sensei to overlook this fact, and that would result in questions and revelations we can't afford." She handed the clipboard back to Satou instead of Ran. "Just copy the list of medications without his name on it and pass it to Hirata-sensei. This should be enough information for him to arrange everything for Edogawa-kun. Oh, and please give it back to me afterwards, would you?"

"Okay… yes," Satou answered. She knew the truth by now about Haibara Ai and Edogawa Conan, but it still confused her to see a little girl standing in front of her, speaking like an adult and giving orders to her.

Conan-kun had had his mature moments as well, but he'd concealed them with an innocent childish smile. She remembered his bright "Ah le le!?" only too well. He usually used it right before he pointed out some important clues on a case.

This girl now had never behaved like she was seven or eight. Especially next to cute little Ayumi-chan, she appeared calm and reserved. Her comments – if she gave them at all – varied from bored to sarcastic to sharp.

'Not much difference to now when I think about it. I've always thought she was simply more mature because of her family background and maybe kind of shy,' Satou mused and shrugged off the topic for now.

The not-girl seemed to know what she was doing, so no point hindering her. As soon as things will have calmed down, she was determined to have a word or two with both of them; Kudou-kun as well as Haibara-chan…-san… whatever. She brought her attention back to the task at hand. "OKay," she repeated. "Then I will be right back." With a last thoughtful glance she left the girls.

"I think it suffices if I'll wait here for her return. Why don't you go and check on Edogawa-kun?" Ai offered and sat down on one of the nearby seats lined up on the wall.

"Yes, you're right. Thank you… Haibara-san," Ran smiled unsurely at her, and turned to leave.

"You know," she was stopped by Ai's quiet voice and looked back to the girl whose gaze was pointed at the floor. "'Ai' will be still just fine for now."

Ran's smile softened. "Alright then – Ai-kun."

ooOO-OOoo

Ran had a déjà-vu as she sat beside Conan's hospital bed. Not long ago she'd sat like this in Momozono-san's house.

The nurse had just left after inserting some pain-killers in Conan's IV that wouldn't cause complications with the stuff he'd been given earlier. He was pale but looked peaceful now in his sleep. The breathing-mask had been replaced by a tube in his nostrils. The IV-drip led to his right arm while on his left pointer was a clip that sent his heartbeat through a wire to a monitor, which converted the signal into a steady beeping tone.

Ran leaned forward in her chair, placed her arms on the bed and rested her head on them, looking at Conan.

Finally!

Now that she knew where he was, that he was save and that he would be better soon, she could let go. She hadn't to worry anymore about what this organization could do to him and no one would take him away from her this time. She would make sure of that! The downside was that she had nothing to do right now but let her thoughts wander, and they decided that it was time to think about the whole 'Conan is Shinichi' dilemma again. The great heart-to-heart talk had yet to come and she wasn't exactly looking forward to it. She was in on it due to the conversation she'd had with Agasa-hakase, knew the facts that had led to his current situation, but she hadn't heard Shinichi's side of the story. She wanted to hear it in his words and learn about his reasons from himself.

After all what had happened, she'd already forgiven him. She still was sure she could've handled the truth and helped him if he had told her from the start. She didn't fool herself – it would've been hard to see him in this small body all the time, and in spite of all treat him like the child he appeared to be. Yes, their daily life would've been a great deal more awkward.

'Would it really have been better knowing everything? Easier? I wouldn't have been worrying about his whereabouts, but I would have seen his constant struggle with… everything. And this ever-present fear…'

She remembered all too well how she'd felt on her way through the city yesterday.

The recent events had taken a toll on her as well as on everybody else. She felt exhausted. Allowing her eyes to close, she slid into sleep. 'Maybe Shinichi actually did me a huge favor, leaving me out of the loop.'

ooOO-OOoo

Cautiously, Ai opened the door to Conan's room.

'Just like I thought – she fell asleep here.' She tiptoed to the second chair opposite to the one a sleeping Ran occupied.

She just wanted to do a quick check of Conan's current health-state and looked at the monitor. Memorizing the data, she turned to the chair to sit and jot them down onto the clipboard she'd regained from Satou. On the chair lay a pile of folded clothes. Obviously the loose, too big hospital gown Conan had worn on their escape. Putting them down – surly Conan wouldn't mind – something fell to the ground, skipped a few times over the laminate and rolled under the bed. Sighing, Ai kneeled down and searched the floor.

'Where the heck…? Ah – there.' She had to crawl on all fours to reach it, closed her small fingers around it and came out from beneath the bed again to examine the little thing.

Innocently, the capsule sat on her palm. 'It can't be… can it? Don't get too excited about this, Ai – this can be any sort of pill. But…'

Forgetting about being quiet, she grabbed the clipboard and stormed out of the room. The door closed shut behind her with a thud.

"What?" Ran started and looked around. Nothing had changed in the room except for the clothes that now lay on the ground and no longer on the chair.

'Strange.' Seeing that nothing was wrong with Conan, she went back to sleep.

ooOO-OOoo

Mouri Kogoro was currently on the phone with Megure. Satou had called the Inspector in the meantime to inform him that she was on her way back to the hospital with the documents about the experimental trials. Now that this was taken care of, Megure informed Kogoro about the take down.

"You're saying that you are not sure if you've caught all of them?" Kogoro asked, frowning.

"I think we can assume that not all members have been in the building, and that they have numerous hideouts spread all over the city, if not even the whole country," Megure answered tiredly.

"So, it's not over yet," Kogoro remarked gravely. "I have trouble to understand what this organization wants from a child like Conan-kun. Sure – he can be a pain, but honestly – how much of a threat can he be to them? He is just a nosy, annoying child." He knew that he used these harsh words just to conceal how much he worried about the boy. It helped him to keep a clear head.

"Yes… uhm… about Conan-kun… Can you meet up with me now at the Police Station? There are some issues I have to talk about with you."

"Now?" Kogoro was confused. Couldn't that wait until tomorrow? Conan hadn't woken up by now and he hesitated to leave. Then again, Ran would have a hawks-eye on him and he wasn't tired at all – sleeping during daytime had its advantages.

"Alright, Keibu. I'll be there in about half an hour."

ooOO-OOoo

Her fingers trembled.

'Inhale – exhale. Calm down.'

She repeated this until she was sure she wouldn't damage her experimental setup. If this was the real deal, she couldn't afford any mistakes. With a scalpel, she cut the capsule in half and tapped some of the white powder it held into a chemical solution that contained some unicellular organism. She absorbed the substance with a syringe and put the content on a microscope slide.

"Alright – let's do this."

Ai adjusted her microscope until she achieved the correct settings. Peering through the lenses, she prayed that she would see what she expected.

Different from necrosis, apoptosis caused the cells to swell until they destroyed themselves. Phagocytes eliminated the remains. They were like the body's own garbage collection - not that in this solution any of them would appear.

She held her breath while she waited for the cell-reaction. 'Wait! Was that…?'

She zoomed in for better view and suppressed a cry of joy. The cell walls expanded and degraded. This was an ongoing apoptosis.

Ai leaned back in her chair with closed eyes, and let out her held breath in a relieved sigh. Now, she had something she could work with. Something much better than paikaru, which she had used to create the temporary antidotes.

'I think it will be best to start from scratch. Let's see what they have given to you, Kudou-kun.'

She reached for the clipboard and began at the first entry.

As expected, they'd started with the data they'd received from Bourbon and gave Conan her current antidote.

'Wanted to see what I'm capable of, huh?'

Next came some notes regarding pulse, breathing, temperature, blood samples and so on. Then he'd been given the APTX again, but this time it was named 4958. 'Wow – have had some failures there, haven't you?'

She pitied all the poor souls who had to take the numbers between 4869 and 4958. She turned to the page with the formula for this new version. 'What did you alter? The amino acids of somatropin.'

Ai had tried that too. The basic idea was simple. To grow up, our body used somatropin, known as 'Human growth hormone' (HGH) that was released from the hypothalamus and regulated by somatostatin. She had taken the hormone and played with its amino acids. The problem was just that somatropin consisted of 191 of these, what resulted in almost vast combination options. Until now, she'd tried just 52 variations because the process was immensely time-consuming. There was so much one had to take into account before ending up with an actual result to start trials.

Skimming through the next pages, she concentrated her attention on the different amino acids and the effects the changes had had on Conan. She shuddered when she realized how often he'd had to go through the painful process of changing. Ai was one of the few people in this world (most likely the only one) who could truly empathize with what he'd endured.

It seemed that the BO had aimed for a more controlled... what? Poison? No, that didn't sound right. The poison was working well enough. Conan and she were the exception of the rule. All the other victims were dead. She knew that because the poison had been used off and on until she'd 'quit' and there had been a corpse every time. So, the antidote? No, they'd altered the APTX every time but barely the antidote - just enough to fit the new forumal of the APTX. They'd just needed him in his adult form to try a new version of APTX.

The results showed an increasing amount of somatostatin. This hormone was taking part in initiating apoptosis. That was nothing new to Ai. Somatostatin had been an essential component of the poison from the start. But to just repress it didn't work for the antidote. She'd tried it and the results on the mice had been… rather disturbing. She needed to know how to balance out the two counterparts. What brought her back to the problem with the 191 amino acids.

She studied the data again. The extracted body-cells seemed to grow younger every time. In fact, the last samples belonged to a younger Conan than he was supposed to be by now. As if he was seven again and not nearly nine.

'So they'd aimed for youth after all.' Ai was aware that there had been several top secret projects concerning this topic, but APTX had been none of them, or else they'd known what had happened to 'Sherry' right away. Only when they'd learned about Conan, they'd started researches in this direction. 'And they'd been close.'

Just the thought of what would happen if this was brought to perfection and leaked into public – it would unleash hell. No, this had to be concealed completely.

'But maybe the BO scientists still have been on the right track for the permanent antidote – just in the wrong direction. After all, they did alter it slightly – if I reverse and intensify this, maybe… '

A/N: I've done some researches for the 'science-part', but I do not take responsibility for its correctness. I'm no physician after all. I am all for writing as close to reality as possibly, but hey - this is fanfiction, don't overdo it. XD Agasa calls Haibara 'Ai-kun'. I think Ran goes with it, as '-chan' seems not to be fitting for her.