Disclaimer: Am not earning anything. Not making money, you got that?

A/N:

I just realized that this is actually an alternate universe fic. Nice. I always thought alternate universe meant mixing the main characters with something futuristic or mystical. Ah! I need tutorials to refresh my Internet vocabulary or something.

And can anyone please tell me how am I doing in the suspense department? Is this too predictable? No flames, just constructive criticisms, thank you very much.

And did you know that the letters in the word VIRUS in computers actually stands for something? I learned that from a game show (as in Pilipinas, game ka na ba?). Is that correct? Please let me know.

Oh, and I'm a little bit geographically challenged (meaning I don't take directions very well and easily get lost, yes, even in places where I lived my whole life), so I tend not to be overly detailed (actually I skip that if possible) in geographical descriptions.

Please review.  And don't hate me for what I did in this chapter.

Bluedetective:

I think I still have a few chapters to go before I finally reveal which side Miyagi's on. Sorry. But, please, keep on reading. I'll be dropping a few hints here and there.

YunCyn:

Thanks for the compliment on the katana comment. You are a Heiji-Kazuha fan. I should've known. Well, I promise that at chapter 14 at the latest, I'll dish out a H/K thingy.

1412:

Thanks for the tip. I'll do just that as soon as I have the time.

NYC0985 :

And yet, you read all the way to chapter 11…

Dess (my cousin who stole my outline):

Hey, since you know na what's going to happen, the least you can do is to review my story. But for your sake, I changed the outline a bit. I think I owe you one. I actually like the new outline better than the old one. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. And no, you cannot look at it. I swear if you steal it again, I'm going to smother you in your sleep. I'm not your roommate for nothing, you know.

Chapter 12:

VIRUS

(Vital Information Under Siege)

          Conan gasped, hardly believing what he was hearing.

          "Good, good," Miyagi grinned.

          "Shinichi," Agasa called out.

          Ai walked calmly after the professor.

          "Is it true?" Conan gasped, his voice barely a whisper. This is it.

          Ai nodded. "Theoretically, it should work." She said. "Actually, I don't think there's any reason for it not to work anymore."

          "And I won't regress?"

          Ai actually smiled. "This isn't a cure, Kudo-kun. It's medication that will accelerate the speed that your body grows. An anti-thesis, if you will, of the APTX 4869. The only danger is that the safeguard Yoshke-kun and I put up would fail and your cells wouldn't know when to stop their growth acceleration causing you to die of old age at age seventeen."

          "That's it?" Hattori shot in with a smirk. "Better to die than to regress, right?"

"Shut up." Conan grimly held his hand out. Everyone in the room knew that it was a risk he was willing to take. "I'm ready."

          Ai actually grinned. "What are you holding out your hand for?" She asked.

          Conan almost burst with frustration. Now is not the time for bantering. "Come on, Ai. Ran needs me now,"

          "I have to administer the cure to you," she said, she then held out a syringe filled with white liquid.

          Conan paled.

          Miyagi snickered.

          "Mouri-san's request," Ai added.

          Hattori couldn't help but laugh. Neechan sure got her own ways of making her displeasure felt.

          "Plus the effects will be faster if it's injected directly to your bloodstream." Ai said. "On the upside, your change won't be as painful as the change with the APTX."

          "What do you mean?" Hattori asked.

          "Yoshke-kun said that it would be better if the medication's given in small dosages rather than at one go. Less painful. More controlled. Less room for mistakes." Ai replied. "This shot will age you about three years."

          "That would mean I'll have three shots," Conan murmured.

          "Four, actually," Ai almost snickered.

          "I can handle being a year younger, sixteen is good,"

          "Aw, don't be such a baby," Hattori teased.

          Conan glared at him as he sat morosely on the sofa. Agasa raised the sleeve of his right arm and started to clean it with cotton sprayed generously with alcohol. Ai then proceeded to give him a shot.

          Conan winced as the needle stabbed him. He felt the liquid enter his body.

          "The second shot will be in three hours at the least," Ai told him.

          "That long?" Conan groaned.

          "Yoshke-kun and I computed it very well. It has to be that long or your body might go into shock." Ai replied, giving him an evil glare. Her eyes then turned to the guy amusedly watching them. "Who's that?"

          Miyagi grinned. "You must be Miyano Shiho." He said.

"What time is it?" Yoshke asked as he shifted uneasily in the backseat of the car.

          "Nine," Kazuha replied.

          "Well, some of them would have to leave that building sometime, right?" Sonoko asked irritably.

          "Well, if they are, now is a good time to leave." Yoshke replied. "Nothing like booze to help you unwind after a long day at work."

          "Ladies, I see our tickets in," Kid said with an evil grin he had insisted on staying with the girls that night, but he was on the tree beside the car, connected by the communicator they left him the last time.

          "You're still here?" Ran asked him lazily. "Sonoko's kiss affected you that much, huh?" She joked as she looked up the tree. She could've sworn that she saw just a hint of red beneath that poker face of his…

          "This isn't a time to mix pleasure with business ladies," was all the thief said.

          Sonoko looked over to where the Kid had pointed          earlier.

          A man had just exited the building/laboratory of the Black Organization.

          "Hey, Kid," Sonoko called out. "You're a master of disguise, right?"

          "Of course,"

          "So how good are you in picking up men?"

          Conan was feverish but conscious. Already, they could see developments of his rapid growth. He should be resting, but he wanted to hear Miyagi's story. So while Conan lay on the couch, his face contorting in pain (though not as painful as his experience with APTX), the others turned expectantly at Miyagi.

          "You're probably wondering whom I'm working for," he began, his face breaking into a grin.

          "Among other things," Hattori grumbled. He had insisted that he come after the girls while the rest work on Conan's cure but Miyagi flat out refused to tell him where they are, insisting that they could very much take care of themselves.

          "Well, won't the good detectives venture a guess?" Miyagi grinned enthusiastically.

          "Oh, darn!" Sonoko cried out as she stumbled a little.

          Her slim and nimble companion caught her as she fell.

          "Are you alright?" Her companion asked.

          Sonoko looked up to the pretty face of the Phantom Thief. He really was good. Even she can't tell that he was only wearing a disguise and was not a real woman at that.

          "Is everything     alright?" A concerned voice asked.

          Sonoko and the Kid turned around and saw the man who had exited the Black Organization laboratory earlier.

          Kid grinned at him. "Oh, look, Hikaru-chan, we finally found someone!"

          Sonoko looked at the man. "Our car had a flat tire," she explained. "We're not from around here and our car broke down. We don't know how to fix it or who to call," she was on the verge of tears.

          "And we're so scared, it's dark and scary," the Kid added, his feminine face etched with fear.

          "Oh," the man said. "Don't worry. I think I can help you with that." He said confidently.

          Even better. "Really?" Sonoko asked confidently. "Oh, thank you, thank you." She smiled.

          "Our car's this way," Sonoko said as she led him to where they parked earlier.

          Kid popped open the compartment. "The tools and the spare tire are in here," he called out.

          The man rolled up his sleeves and went around to the back of the car. He stood beside Kid and bent down to retrieve the tire.

          Sonoko saw Kid inconspicuously steal the man's wallet. Kid then made it disappear. She hid a grin. That was easy. Maybe she could ask Miyagi to have someone train her to do that too.

          From the tree, Sonoko saw Kazuha take lots and lots of scanned photographs of the man. They needed his exact body measurements and specifications.

          "Oh, thank you, thank you," Sonoko cried out after the man had finished changing their tire.

          "No problem." He smiled at them. "I better get going." He said.

          Miyagi laughed. "The government!" He scoffed. "You thought we were working for the government?"

          Hattori glared at him.

          "The government, this one and others around the world, are clueless as to the existence of the Black Organization, let alone ours." Miyagi replied.

          Had Conan been more himself, instead of fighting drowsiness and pain on the bed, he would've agreed.

          "So who do you work for?" Hattori demanded.

          "Well, we work for the highest bidder." Miyagi grinned.

          "You're for hire?"

          "We have to make ends meet." Miyagi replied easily. "And believe me, espionage is not something you go into without money to back you up. Gadgets needs funding in their research, and information is for sale."

          "Who are you working for right now?"

          "I can't answer that." Miyagi crossed his arms, daring Hattori to contradict him.

          "Fine," Hattori said. "What does the girls have to do with you?" He demanded.

          "So the plan is to get in, get the pills and destroy as much of their files as possible, and get out as quick," Kazuha said as she typed in her laptop showing a map of the lab that Yoshke had painstakingly recollected, with the various security checks. "And if nobody notices our presence there, the better."

          "Where would be the fun in that?" The Kid asked seriously.

          The three girls turned to him simultaneously.

          "Don't tell me you're going to leave a note," Ran groaned.

          "Well, you girls have your way and I have mine," he grinned.

          Kazuha rolled her eyes. "Alright, why don't we split the assignment?" She suggested. "Kid'll search for the pills and Ran can corrupt their system."

          Kid nodded. "Alright." He grinned. "Race you," with that, he disappeared.

          "My parents were spies, that's how I got into this business." Miyagi related. "However, my strengths are more in the organizational level and in playing the political game so they thought that they'd give me a chance to start my own team.

"Well, the long and short of it is that I know Ran-chan, I know she has potential, so I wanted to recruit her. Disguising myself, I followed her for a while. And it was while following her that I found out about short-stuff over there and the Black Organization. So I recruited Ran, she sort of recruited Sonoko-chan. Kazuha-chan found out, and she wanted in our little set-up."

Hattori frowned. "So they've been doing this for half a year now?"

          Miyagi shook his head. "The first few months are for training. But we've had our little set-up for three months now."

          "Set-up?"

          "I'm their eyes and their mouth. I search for information and relay messages for them to our Big Boss." Miyagi explained. "Ran-chan's our legs. She does the dirty work like running after crooks. Sonoko-chan's our face. She changes her identity and becomes someone else so that we can get the information we need. Kazuha-chan's our brain. She coordinates everything we do and monitor our progress. It's like clockwork."

          "Where's the Kid?" Ran asked as she and Sonoko effortlessly climbed over the wall.

          "He's already inside." Kazuha replied in their ears. "He took to the skies, that show-off."

          "Take care, Sweetie!" Yoske's muffled voice shouted.

          "Dogs," Ran groaned.

          "What?" Sonoko demanded.

          Ran pointed to the ground where a lot of fierce-looking Doberman were lurking around.

          "I've got just the thing," Sonoko said. She then descended the wall. A few moments later, Ran saw Sonoko scaling the wall far away from her. Sonoko then took out something from her pocket and put it in her mouth.

          The dogs below perked their ears and started to go in Sonoko's general direction, barking all the way.

          Ran grinned. A doggie whistle. She took the opportunity to jump down inside the fortress. "So tell me where are the computer terminals located?" She asked Kazuha.

          "What are they after?" Hattori asked. "And how do we figure in it?"

          Miyagi grinned. "Well, the crux of our assignment is the pill that Kudo Shinichi swallowed."

          Ai, who had been quiet the whole exchanged, stirred. Though her face maintained her calm demeanor, Hattori noted that she had become deathly pale. "W-what about it?"

          Kazuha stared at her computer screen and grinned. Ran was happily hacking away in one of the in-house computer, letting loose a breed of new virus. Good. Their researches would be set back for a while.

          The wallet Kid had pilfered had come in handy as Ran used it to open a lot of rooms. It turned out that the man Sonoko and Kid had picked up was quite a high-ranking scientist, as his ID was able to open a lot of doors.

          "Kid," Kazuha called out.

          "Yes, m'lady?" Kid drawled.

          Kazuha frowned. She has no visual on the Kid, only audio. "Yoshke said that the pills are probably on the basement, inside a vault. In order to open the vault, you would need a complete body scan. Yoshke said that most high-level scientist can open it if they needed a sample of the drug to work on. You've got the hologram projector I gave you."

          "Of course." Kid replied. "So all I have to do is project the image to myself while being scanned by the computer."

          "Of course, we don't know if our man was high enough to be able to open the vault." Kazuha said.

          "That's fine." Kid replied confidently. "What would life be without taking a few risks?"

          "That's odd," a man in black frowned as he stared into his computer.

          "What is?" His companion asked.

          "I thought that Rum left for the day,"

          "He did,"

          "Why then is his ID used to open the computer lab on the top floor and then three point four minutes later, he opened the vault on the basement?"

          "Wait. It's impossible to go from the top floor to the basement in under five minutes. It would take at least ten,"

          "And Rum had left for the day…"

          "INTRUDERS!"

          Ran grinned as alarms started sound all around her. She got what she came for. She can only hope that Kid was able to do the same. The virus Miyagi gave them had worked wonders. Within seconds, all the precious data that the organization collected over the years disappeared in a puff.

          Now all she got to do is get out of this place.

          "Ran and Kid did it!" Kazuha exclaimed triumphantly as she turned to Yoshke. "Now all they got to do is get out of the place." She gasped at what she saw.

          A large man wearing a black suit and sunglasses despite the darkness had stuck his hand inside the car and pointed a gun at Yoshke.

          "Get out of the car, now," he told the two.

          Dumbly, Kazuha and Yoshke complied, but not before Kazuha pressing the panic button and making sure that she was wearing her tracking device. A lot of good that will do to you if you're dead. She pushed that thought out of her head.

          A young woman not that much older than Kazuha met her outside the car. She, too, pointed a gun at Kazuha. "What are we going to do with them, Vodka?" The woman asked.

          "Vermouth wanted the girl." Vodka replied. "But this man," he indicated to Yoshke. "Is a traitor. You know what we do to a traitor, Brandy?"

          Kazuha's stomach turned at the murderous look in Brandy's eyes. "Yes," and without a warning, she fired her gun.

          Kazuha screamed as she ducked down instinctively. She felt tears running down her cheek. She can't believe it had come to this…

          "Very good, Brandy," Vodka said.

          "What are we going to do with the body?" Brandy asked as she placed a bag in the backseat of the car.

          "Aniki said to leave it. We won't have to worry about him," Vodka replied as he walked towards Kazuha and violently jerked her upright. "We'll just take her and go."

          "What about our laboratory?"

          "We don't need it anymore." Vodka replied as he took out a remote control of some sort from his pocket. He pressed the button.

          Suddenly, the laboratory behind them exploded.

          Brandy grinned. "You certainly know how to please a woman," she said as she enjoyed the sight of rubble burning, not minding the defeaning noise the explosion made nor the sudden heat.

          "Ran!" Kazuha cried as she struggled to be freed from her captor.

          "She's gone now, darling," Brandy drawled. "You should've minded your own business, you know."

          "Ran," Kazuha's eyes were downcast. Sonoko. Yoshke. Kid. She can't believe, no, she refused to believe, that they were gone. Just seconds ago, she was celebrating their victory. But now…Her mind then turned to the omamori she always wore around her neck, hidden beneath her shirt. Please, if I don't make it, please protect that idiot.

-tbc

P.S.

I hated cliffhangers when I read fanfics. And now, I'm doing it myself. But don't worry; you don't have to wait too long. Believe it or not, I'm half-done with the next chapter before I even wrote this one. Give me a week at the most.

P.P.S.

Oh, and since ff.net will be down on the 14th and the 15th, and I have a date (yeah, baby!) tomorrow, consider this as my pre-Valentines gift to everyone. Happy hearts' day!

P.P.P.S.

I just watched Hero starring Jet Li. It's good. I highly recommend it, if not for the story line, then for the cinematography. Jet Li (in the slim chance that you ever read my fic), you rock my world!