DISCLAIMER:
I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE CONAN!
'Another traitor from your black organization, I assume.' Conan asked, clearly not looking for an answer for he had already deducted everything.
Haibara stayed silent for a while, glaring down at the brown haired girl who lay comfortably tucked in a warm bed in Doctor Akasa's spare bedroom. After a while, Conan decided that it was time to continue with his questions.
'Who is she really? How does she know how you look like when you were a little kid?'
'She was my first roommate from SFI'
'SFI?' Conan asked, while trying to figure out what the abbreviation stood for.
'School For Intelligence at Hidden Valley in the US. It's where I was raised'
It was the first time Haibara mentioned her past, Conan duly noted.
'A scientist as well?'
'No, she specialized in Computer Technology, which is basically everything computer related from hardware, software, networking and even hacking into systems. She was the best'
'Then what is she doing here?' Conan demanded, his voice having turned serious with a note of panic. 'How did she find us? You didn't call her here did you?'
'Why does everyone always pick on Sherry?' a voice originating from the bed wondered. The girl who said that slowly pushed herself up to look at the rest of the people in the room, her eyes fully awoken and shining from the intelligence hidden underneath the childish body.
'Don't worry.' The girl continued. 'Sherry had nothing to do with it; I quit, so I came here to look for help.'
Conan and Haibara quickly locked gazes, both looking terrified as they wondered if they had made any mistakes that would lead the black organization directly to them.
'I heard Sherry tell you that I am a hacker, so yeah, that's my job. And as she also told you, I was the best of them. Virtually no information is safe from me, which means that I had access to every fishy little report the black organization encrypted and hid in their servers.'
Figuring that she was about to tell them a long story, Cider turned her back against the wall, still facing her audience, and pulled the sheets around her, covering herself up to her neck while snuggling comfortably underneath.
One of the many reports I read while I was working was about a young detective that took APTX 4869 and the resulting search at his place after the incident. It wouldn't strike anyone but me as strange, because of the fact that my old best friend made some changes to it two days after it was submitted. Sherry always has her reason for doing things like that, and I'm sure it wasn't just a typo problem. That was my first clue.'
The other two froze. They know now.
'Thanks to me, being one of the five top computer administrator of the organization, I covered that up for her. Her sister's death and her disappearance were my second and third clue that something was up. And finally, the fourth clue that confirmed your position, was an attempt to look up information from the organization's disk not long after that, right from this place. It messed up your computer didn't it?' The girl smirked.
'But the computer wasn't even connected to the internet or anything, it was working offline' Conan argued, once again thinking that Haibara might have betrayed him by contacting the organization that sent this girl.
'That's my masterpiece.' the girl answered with a satisfied grin.
'I forgot to tell you that my hobby is computer virus development. While messing up your computer the virus logged onto the network and notified me that there's an attempt to open the disk from outside. Luckily, people don't usually pull out their phone cords when they go offline, and that was your mistake.'
As realization of how it all had happened dawned on Conan and Haibara, Cider simply smiled and confirmed their suspicions.
'Doesn't that sound sooooo simple? It only took two seconds to let me know, most of the time it works'
'So you figured out where we were hiding through that method.' Haibara concluded.
'It was quite a gamble, but pretty much yes'
'So it hasn't slipped out to them that we are here?'
'Since when did I stop covering up for you, Sherry?'
Conan and Haibara exchanged a look. Having known Conan for a long time, Haibara easily read Conan's questioning expression, the one that asked her if Cider could be trusted. Haibara gave a small nod of confirmation.
'It sounds like you had a great job, and knew everything the black organization would kill to know … so then why did you quit, Cider?' Haibara asked.
'Because they are killing him' Cider whispered, sinking her head into the sheets.
Haibara merely nodded, knowing perfectly well whom Cider was referring to.
'They have festered his mind. And I want him back. I want us both out of this … this madness!' Cider cried out, her voice slightly muffled by the sheets but still resonating with the emotional scar deep inside her.
Both Conan and Haibara were puzzled about what Cider was referring to, but kept their silence while waiting for the answer to their unspoken question.
'Do you know anything about partitioning a computer hard drive?' Cider asked, having lifted her head slightly above the sheets, but still avoiding Conan's and Haibara's gaze. 'It's a really simple thing every person who has formatted a PC should know and be able to do.'
'By partitioning a hard drive it basically means that you're splitting the space on the computer into different parts, so that the information can be stored in an organized way, and it will also protect the information in case one part goes down.' Pausing, Cider sighed and took a short breather before going on with the explanation.
'Have you also heard of the Split Personality Disorder?' Sensing, rather than seeing their confirming nods, the girl continued. 'The term is quite self-explanatory. Basically, you have two personalities, kind of like two completely different people inside your head, at the same time, although only one is active at one time. But the thing is, you won't notice or remember anything about the other personality, and what they've done while they've been asleep. 'Knowing that, can you now see how these two things can be related?' Cider asked them. When the others didn't respond, she finally got to her point.
'I was part of PPP, the 'Partitioning Personalities Program' research team. Our goal is to split people's memory, a part of the brain into two parts completely isolated from one another, thus creating a perfect spy that would be able to be proved innocent when captured since he wouldn't have a clue what the other personality of his has done. That would both protect his life and all the information gathered from the mission.' As she said this, her voice started shaking, quivering out of grief for the facts that she was about to reveal.
'I wouldn't have done it … I never would … If I knew only that they were going to experiment it on him! But after I had become involved in it, after I had reached the point where I couldn't back out of PPP, they chose to use Tonic, for they knew that I wouldn't fail if I was responsible for him. So I had no choice.'
'They split him into two men. One is called Jake, while the other one is Daryl. Jake is like how Tonic really were. He is very intelligent, charming and caring, while….' Pausing, Cider tried to blink off her tears that streamed down her face.
'Daryl is a merciless killing machine, an ideal spy.'
******
A/N:
It was really awesome getting reviews from readers :). I was soooooo excited. Thanks a million!
The story's getting more complicated in this chapter. DeadMeat asked me where I got the idea from. To tell you the truth I don't know. Everything just clicked while I was playing tennis. There was a lot more than this but I kinda forgot coz I didn't have anything to write on. :'(
Thanks again to DeadMeat for your brilliant job of editing this mess for me. Is it just me or you edit pretty much half of the chapter??
[Editors notes: No, it's Me :P]
