Author's Note: What's this? The next chapter only a week later? Amazing! Enjoy it while you can though, because the next one won't be out for a long while. Did you know this chapter didn't actually exist in the original outline that I wrote for this story a year ago? Yeah, it was originally going to go straight from 'Raven Mystery Train' to 'Darkest Nightmare'. So glad I didn't end up doing that. This chapter ended up being rather necessary. This chapter spans from the end of episode 706 "Bourbon Figures It Out" to episode 813 "The Shadow Approaching Amuro".
Scarlet Showdown
"I managed to return, no problem, and the case was solved thanks to Detective Mouri," Bourbon told Vermouth over the phone while he was driving back home from the…very interesting day he had at the tennis courts.
"I see, but how long are you planning to stick with that detective?" she asked. "All you've managed to discover since you've been there is an unknown hacker keeping tabs on your movements in the area and Sherry being in a place she shouldn't. Even your interest in the nature of Akai's death has led you nowhere, so why don't you call an end to whatever fruitless assignment Gin gave you?"
"No, my interest has been piqued more than ever, by the 'Sleeping Sleuth' that is," Bourbon said as his thoughts turned again to the uncanny little boy that the Organization had chosen as its rival and who had done more than his fair share of leading the murder investigation today. "I'll talk to you later when I have something more concrete I need your assistance with."
With that, he hung up on his superior. This had been his first time encountering Conan directly since he'd learned from Vermouth that the Organization was challenging him after the fiasco of the Mystery Train. With this newfound knowledge, he had kept a much closer eye on Conan than he had previously and what he had observed had intrigued him immensely. He wasn't just a smart kid, he seemed to be the actual brains behind the famous detective, the Sleeping Sleuth. He could better understand why the Organization was so interested in him and why managing him was Gin's responsibility.
Given the personal matter he was investigating and that the Organization had rescued Kir from Haido Central Hospital not too far from Beika City where Conan lived, what was the likelihood that Conan knew anything about that situation? Bourbon could never forget when he heard the news that Akai had been killed and Kir had been the one to pull the trigger on Gin's orders. He was first shocked and then in immediate denial. Akai couldn't be dead, not if Kir was supposedly the one who shot him. If it was Gin who'd done the deed, that would be another matter entirely. He showed no remorse or hesitation towards killing. Alien or human, it made no difference to him, but Kir wasn't like that. She was the opposite of Gin and only shot to kill as a last resort, regardless of the identity of her target, and that was why he was certain Kir had not killed Akai.
As he was driving down the highway, he recalled her words to him when he'd confronted her with his hypothesis that Akai had faked his death:
Kir gave him a steady, piercing look from over her shoulder. "You're looking for a cheat code where there isn't one, Bourbon," she said flatly. "Once you lose your last life or all of your health, then it's game over. You don't come back. It's true of video games and it's true of life."
Then she turned on her heel and left him in the dust without another parting word or a backwards glance. He ground his teeth in frustration, his body already moving to chase after her and demand she tell him what she knew, when he stopped and paused. His brain finally caught up with his ears, thinking over her words carefully. After several moments, a small smirk creased his lips and his blue eyes watched the distance between them increase.
"No, you don't come back from that game…" he murmured in agreement. "… but when it ends, then you can immediately start over with a new game and all your lives with full health."
That brief confrontation with Kir had only solidified the idea in his mind that she had conspired with Akai to fake his death, though he knew he'd never be able to get any further information out of her. If even being thoroughly tortured for hours by an alien that had killed and taken on her father's guise had not broken her spirit when she was twenty-three and fairly new to both the CIA and MiB, then nothing he could say or do four years later with that many more years of experience under her belt would ever cause her to part with the information unwillingly. Still, it had been the biggest driving factor behind his decision to disguise as Akai with a burn scar on his face and appear before his colleagues to judge their reactions. Gin giving him the Pandora investigation assignment in the Beika City area had given him the perfect pretext to carry out that test. Starting with the FBI had yielded a negative result, but if he started with Conan this time around, what answers might he come up with?
()()()()()
"That's it!" Haibara exclaimed to herself in the lab, both impressed and excited by her own discovery.
After months and months of attempting to make an antidote for APTX-4869 after discovering the growth effects of baijiu whilst sick, she finally had another breakthrough! She'd been tackling this problem all wrong from the very beginning. Just as ibuprofen could lower a fever caused by a bacterial infectious agent, but an antibiotic would actually kill the pathogen in question, all of her antidotes thus far had been formulated to reverse the symptomatic effects of the drug without treating the root cause. The only reason they even worked was because they were taken when the body was at its most vulnerable and the immune system could not so readily protect the body from the effects of the drug when it was already under attack.
Yet, every time, the effects of the drug wore off and returned her and Kudo to their small size. All drugs wore off over time, so shrinking back to being seven had never been unexpected, but it had suddenly hit her a few days ago that APTX-4869 was also a drug, yet the effects had never worn off. It was as though the drug had permanently changed something in their bodies that would not be affected afterward by the liver's breakdown of the drug in question. She had resumed her problem-solving investigation into the drug with this new epiphany at the forefront of her mind.
And that was how she had reached this point.
APTX-4869 did not just regress the body's cells to a juvenile state; it reprogrammed the body's sense of self to be that of the younger form. The human immune system was only able to function by distinguishing objects in the body as either 'self' or 'not-self', which was the reason why blood types were so important for blood transfusions. The immune system of a person with Type O wouldn't recognize any blood with A or B antigens as 'self' and would attack that blood accordingly.
Instead of just reversing the shrinking effects of APTX-4869, what she really needed to do was focus primarily on reprogramming the body's 'self' identification through the immune system so that it would again recognize the adult body as 'self'. Haibara was amazed. She finally had a good, solid idea of what she needed to do to fix the problem she had created. In effect, the permanent antidote would regrow the body while sick and then overwrite the immune system's current default of child self with the new adult self. No, the body wouldn't need to be sick if she temporarily knocked out the immune system and then the regrowth and 'self' overwriting effects would take place. She wasn't sure if she could make one drug that could do all three things, especially since there was a timing component to it. Either she would have to make two separate drugs, or she and Kudo would have to wait to get sick before the permanent antidote could be used. Hmm, or maybe they wouldn't have to wait since she did still have those capsules that simulated the effects of a cold and even went so far as to activate the immune system.
Well, Haibara supposed she would cross that bridge when she got there. Right now, she had some new chemical formulations to work out for the real antidote.
()()()()()
A little less than a year ago now, famous high school detective Shinichi Kudo was solving cases left and right, and was often called upon by the police to consult on difficult cases. He was known as the Savior of the Police Force and he was a quick-rising star in the news. The more cases he solved, the more his fame grew, and the more challenging the case, the greater his ego grew. He was on fire, unstoppable, and absolutely nothing could tear him down from his pedestal.
That's how the story always starts anyway.
A little less than a year ago now, Shinichi Kudo helped the Tokyo police identify and arrest a murderer who had turned out to be something rather less than human. He was an alien, and not just any alien, but a powerful Quantaban mob boss that the Men in Black had their eyes on for a while. In the interim between the Quantaban being taken into police custody and being snatched from under their noses by the MiB, the mob boss, furious and humiliated that a mere human boy had brought him low, sent out a communiqué from his antennae to the members of his group on Earth. He gave them orders to put out into the galaxy a bounty of 1,000 quantars – the equivalent of roughly 100 million yen or one million US dollars – for the severed head of Shinichi Kudo.
The MiB got wind of the bounty on the young detective's head and Sherry had the perfect temporary solution to save him. While working on a different project, she had accidentally created a drug that deaged the body of the victim who consumed it and yet all the tests she'd done on the youthened mice showed they still retained their adult intellects. The MiB had been keeping a close eye on this rising star detective with the hope that perhaps they could use him and his close relationship with the Tokyo police to recruit new mostly-trained members to their ranks. They were looking to boost their numbers to help contain the fallout from one of the major trade centers on Xanadu being obliterated in the course of the intergalactic war raging amongst the star systems.
Sherry was especially keen on sponsoring the high school detective and recommended her new drug titled APTX-4869 to 'that person' as the solution when she heard of the bounty placed on her champion. Her logic was simple. Shinichi Kudo couldn't be killed if he was already dead. The plan was approved, and the drug was administered successfully without revealing the true reason for the 'murder' attempt. Only a select group of people initially knew the truth of what happened to Shinichi Kudo: 'that person' and Rum, of course, Curaçao as his right-hand, Sherry as the developer of the drug, and Gin and Vodka as the ones who administered it to the detective. As intended, the high school detective disappeared from the public eye practically overnight and there were many rumors that believed he was dead. It was exactly what the MiB wanted everyone, especially the Quantabans, to think.
That was how the story went so far.
A little less than a year later in current time, the original Quantaban mob boss that had posted the bounty on Shinichi Kudo was unexpectedly murdered. The work appeared to be done by that of a professional assassin believed to have been sent by a rival family. The new mob boss that succeeded him reallocated the funds for the bounty on Shinichi Kudo to a new bounty for the assassin that had killed his uncle and predecessor. The bounty on Shinichi Kudo was thus voided and nobody in the galaxy or on Earth was interested in his whereabouts or potential survival anymore. It was now safe for Shinichi Kudo to return to the world once more.
And that was how that story ended. Anticlimactic, unfulfilling, and maybe… just a little too convenient…
()()()()()
"What a surprise. The man you disguised as had his wallet stolen," Vermouth said to the disguised Bourbon sitting next to her in the driver's seat of his car after they had left the park.
"I did find it strange that he didn't have a wallet," Bourbon admitted. "Well, good thing I borrowed those weird five-yen coins he had in his pocket."
"But to go out of your way to return his stolen wallet..." Vermouth said in a light, mocking tone.
"It'd be a problem if he'd made a fuss about it, wouldn't it? It had his debit card and driver's license in it after all," Bourbon pointed out, unphased by her taunting.
"Well, you should be grateful. You know that bug that you slipped into that FBI kitten's sleeve when she grabbed your arm? I got it back for you," she said with a smug grin as she held up the small black rectangular device.
"Thank you, I appreciate it."
She smirked with satisfied pleasure. "Well? Did you get anything interesting from that kitten?" she said as she depressed the inflated bag she'd worn underneath her dress to simulate a pregnant body and ripped off the face mask.
"Yeah, it was quite the harvest," Bourbon said as he ripped off his own and winked at her. "I got to hear a surprising inside story."
"You'll let me hear the outcome of the story once you're finished, won't you?" she asked. She was helping Bourbon because he'd asked her, but she had her own reason for continuing to assist him with the disguises he needed.
"Of course, as soon as I've obtained positive proof of it, but I can already say this much. He's a terrifying man, that boy," Bourbon said with a hard smile on his face.
Vermouth still believed Gin had sent Bourbon to the Beika area to investigate Pandora, but since Gin still hadn't told anyone what he was after, she was more than happy to 'innocently' help Bourbon if it kept him distracted from his original mission. She couldn't be accused of obfuscating his assignment if she didn't know what it was, right? Besides, Bourbon seemed to be doing an excellent job of getting sidetracked by this mysterious, personal pursuit all on his own without her prodding.
()()()()()
Bourbon was so frustrated and angry, he was hardly aware of his surroundings. His body was moving on autopilot to take him back home and his mind kept repeating Akai's words back to him: I still feel bad about what happened to him.
Damn him, damn him, damn him! He was right all along; Akai was alive and he couldn't do a damn thing about it! He jammed the key to his apartment into the door and slammed it open only for his nose to be assaulted by a familiar, noxious burning smell.
He coughed and shouted, "Who's here?!"
Bourbon flicked on the front light and a black-clothed figure immediately leapt into his vision from among the lighter colors of his foyer. It was Gin, smoking and glaring at him through his long bangs.
"Gin! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Bourbon demanded furiously. "This is breaking and entering!"
"I could ask you the very same thing, Bourbon," Gin said icily as he took the cigarette from between his lips and purposefully extinguished it on the dark wood of the coffee table, leaving an even darker burn mark. "Priority Alpha-1. Does that mean nothing to you?"
Bourbon stilled. Shit. He'd gotten so caught up in finally having active, working leads to investigate Akai's fate that he'd completely forgotten about Pandora.
He gave an unassuming shrug, trying to downplay it. "You didn't exactly give me much information to work with, so if progress is slow, I can hardly be blamed for that."
"No, but you can be blamed for wasting precious time investigating a dead man," Gin growled as he stood up from the couch with his hands shoved into his pockets, and his tall, intimidating presence dominated the room. "I warned you the last time I caught you chasing ghosts, Bourbon. I warned you that I'd make you regret it if you got distracted by your blind vengeance and pursued the wrong prey."
The words weren't exact, but they were close enough to what he'd heard from Akai already this evening, that he bared his teeth and snapped back, "He sure was pretty damned solid for being a ghost."
Gin released a harsh bark of laughter. "Do you think that's news to me? Kir told me about the plan Shuichi Akai and Conan Edogawa created to fake Akai's death as soon as we rescued her from the FBI, and I allowed it to proceed just as they planned because it suited me. However good you feel about uncovering the survival of your hated rival, you have accomplished nothing these past several weeks and I do not tolerate blatant insubordination lightly."
Gin was left-handed and with his hands in his pockets, Bourbon half-expected him to draw out the Beretta and shoot him in a probably non-fatal area. He tensed to move out of the line of fire, preparing for a side-step. He was completely caught off-guard by his right hand coming out instead and holding an odd gun-like weapon. Gin fired, but there was no explosive bang and something struck him forcibly in the arm through his clothes. Bourbon instinctively grabbed at the injury sight and his hand met with a small cylindrical object.
"Hmph, not bad for a right-handed shot," Gin hummed in satisfaction to himself.
Bewildered, Bourbon looked down and saw a red-feathered dart sticking out of his arm. He pulled it out and held it up to his eye level. "A sedative?" he muttered aloud.
"Correct delivery method, wrong chemical," Gin said as he shoved the small tranquilizer gun back into his coat. "It's Mirewoe-71G, a powerful drug originally developed by the ancient Rrqvs of Etabe IX for interrogations of prisoners of war. It has long since gained galactic fame as a chemical torture substance and you may know it by its more common name: Mind Breaker."
Bourbon gasped and the hand still holding the dart began to shake with fear. "Mind Breaker…?" he breathed in horror.
"Don't worry; I used a small concentration, so you won't end up comatose…" Gin said matter-of-factly. "… but you'll spend the next half-hour or so trapped in your own mind reliving your worst memories twisted and exaggerated beyond your own recognition." As he walked past him to the front door, he smiled cruelly and said, "Sweet dreams, Bourbon."
()()()()()
Gin was not the only one trespassing into other agents' residences, but Vermouth at least waited until morning. Or more specifically, she waited until the residence in question was deserted while its occupant, the brown-haired CIA agent Kir, had already left for a full day of work. Vermouth quietly broke into the apartment and quickly surveyed it. It was cute in a quaint, frugal sort of way. Kir wasn't a high-ranking codenamed agent, but Vermouth knew she made more than her current living quarters otherwise suggested.
Vermouth wasn't here to critique Kir's living style though; she had a much more important task in mind. She had laughed in Bourbon's face last night when he suggested that Akai was still alive and had done a corpse switch with that of the dead Rikumichi Kusuda host body, but she actually believed him. She wouldn't put it past Gin to keep it secret from everyone that Akai was alive and she had good reason to believe her Silver Bullet had helped plan the deception. It would also make much more sense for Kir to fake a death than cause a real one. The only person, alien or otherwise, that she'd ever murdered was the one who'd tortured her while wearing her father's face, and that was an extremely desperate situation.
If Akai was alive though, then that meant he had to have some kind of contact with Kir, otherwise he would be completely out of the loop on all things Black Organization, and he couldn't very well have that, could he? Vermouth carefully picked her way through the apartment, first looking around the living room and then the kitchen before she entered the bedroom and her turquoise blue eyes alighted upon the object of her search: a phone charging on the night table. Kir had two phones: one as Rena Mizunashi and one as Kir and Hidemi Hondou, and judging by the messages she was reading, this phone was the latter. If there was an emergency, then of course the MiB would reach out to Kir through her Mizunashi cellphone, but otherwise, all messages and calls were sent to this one.
Vermouth scrolled through the woman's Contacts list, mentally checking off the ones she recognized from the MiB, which turned out to be most of them. The other half of her contacts were English names, so were probably her CIA colleagues. There was only one contact that really stood out to her as odd, and it was labeled 'Subaru Okiya'. It definitely wasn't an American name nor anybody that she recognized from the Organization or Kir's only living family member. Odds were good that this Subaru Okiya was the current name that Shuichi Akai was going by. She decided to take a chance and sent a short message to him with only three letters: R-U-M.
Rum: the codename for the Number Two of the entire Organization. Once the message was sent, Vermouth erased the record of it from the phone, feeling confident that nobody would discover what she'd done. Akai wouldn't dare reply back to the message for fear of outing Kir as a NOC, and even if her Cool Guy asked Sherry about Rum, it wasn't an automatic assumption for her to make that the name would have been leaked by Kir.
Now Shinichi would have another weapon with which to wield against the Organization when the time finally came to bring down the Men in Black.
()()()()()
"Hello, Gin. How's Germany treating you?"
"Excellent except for the time difference. Curaçao, are you alone right now and is it safe for you to talk?" Gin asked as soon as his sister answered the phone.
"I am and it is," she said, answering both questions.
"Good. I wanted to check on you and see how things were going on your end of the investigation," Gin said as he turned on the speaker and set it on the ledge of the bathroom sink before picking up the hair dryer.
Curaçao laughed. "You're only just now asking about that? I expected this call two weeks ago when I heard through the grapevine how mad you were at Bourbon."
"Anything concrete?" he asked.
"No, just the normal, active, healthy rumor mill," she answered.
That damn rumor mill was why it was so difficult being in a secret relationship with Sherry and keeping it secret. He supposed it was to be expected that an organization full of agents trained to be suspicious about the smallest of abnormalities would result in people being way too nosy about other people's business, but it sure made things inconvenient at times. Still, rumors didn't start from nothing; they needed a spark first and then kindling to continue burning.
"Based on what?" he inquired.
"Bourbon's been quite polite and deferential towards you lately, hasn't he?"
Gin snorted. "That's it?"
"Yep. Given your reputation, the most popular rumor is that you threatened or otherwise did something to Bourbon which is why he's tiptoeing around you, but there's another one that suggests the sexual tension between you two finally exploded and- Edward, is that a blow dryer I'm hearing in the background?" she said, breaking off her original sentence.
"Yeah, I woke up about an hour ago and just got out of the shower, so I'm drying my hair," he said.
"Right, it's like 10 AM or something in Germany right now, but are you even dressed yet?!" she demanded incredulously.
"I'm wearing a towel."
"I swear, I have no idea how your brain works sometimes. Who decides as soon as they're done with the shower before they've even finished with the bathroom that that's the perfect time to call their sister?" Curaçao said with an exasperated air.
"Well apparently, I do," Gin said dryly.
"Apparently," Curaçao agreed.
"Your investigation?" he reminded her.
"No other codenamed agents have been reported to have behaved strangely, but there's quite a large handful of non-codenamed agents that were reported to have done odd out-of-character things over the years. Unfortunately, all of them are dead for various unrelated reasons and none of these odd instances were drastic enough to warrant an in-depth investigation at the time of their deaths," she said.
"And we don't have any liver samples in storage to check, do we?" Gin grumbled.
"Not anymore, we don't," she said grimly. "Guess where they were all stored and how far back the most recent one occurred."
"In the section of the building that lost power due to the blizzard five years ago," he lamented.
"Bingo."
Gin swore angrily under his breath. "So we're no better off than where we started. Damn it, I'm gonna kill Bourbon for wasting time!"
"If Bourbon's being so unreliable, why don't you let me do some intensive investigating into Pandora in his place?" Curaçao offered. "After all, I used to work in Intelligence too before the incident that brought my loyalty into question got me transferred to being Rum's right hand agent."
Gin frowned and set the hair dryer down, though most of his hair was still wet. "You have a lead?"
"A hunch…" his twin corrected. "… but I noticed an interesting similarity among the majority of the non-codenamed agents I looked into. More than half of them were NOCs from other intelligence agencies."
"NOCs…?" he repeated, curious.
"Yes, NOCs that never had the chance to learn the truth about the Organization being the Men in Black, and it occurred to me: maybe Pandora's not just targeting the MiB. She may be going after any major intelligence agency and the MiBJ is the biggest collection point for the greatest variety of intelligence agencies on the planet. Scotch was a NOC for the Secret Police of the PSB, and you've mentioned before that the reason you knew Akemi had been impersonated was because of the text 'she' sent to Akai. If that alien was working for Pandora like you believe, then maybe that text was sent to try and get to Akai because he's FBI."
Gin's eyes had slowly been widening with every word Curaçao spoke and he said, "The Hondous… Mr. Hondou was CIA as is Kir currently, and he was killed while his daughter was tortured for information… Rum was the one who recognized the MO of Ethan Hondou's murder as the same as Tsutomu Akai's from seventeen years ago and presumed that the killer of both was the same individual."
"According to Rum, he had gone to meet Mr. Akai that day to see about inducting him into the MiB as the FBI liaison, much as his son was supposed to become for us a couple years ago. You don't think the FBI/CIA liaison connection between the two fathers is coincidence, do you?" Curaçao added knowingly.
"I don't believe in coincidence," Gin agreed.
"If Pandora really is after just any intelligence agency and is using the MiB as an open hunting ground to scout out her prey, then perhaps it would be best if we turn the investigation on its head and search outward instead of inward," she suggested.
Gin shook his head violently. "No, absolutely not. I refuse to have our network of intelligence liaisons investigate this. That's way too many people to reveal the secret that we believe the MiB may be compromised."
Curaçao clicked her tongue in disapproval over the phone. "You're thinking too small, Gin. All we need are the records of any autopsies that investigated the liver and found an unidentifiable chemical in small doses."
"All we need?!" Gin spluttered, then demanded sarcastically, "And where are you going to find this magnificent database of autopsy records of every major intelligence agent on the planet?"
"Why the NPA Headquarters in Tokyo, of course," she said simply. "They have it, and Bourbon works for the Public Security Bureau of the NPA as one of the Secret Police like Scotch, so we have ready access to the building's inner sanctum."
Gin's green eyes narrowed in irritation. "After the way Bourbon's been behaving lately, I don't want to entrust him with even more information, especially since Vermouth is his direct supervisor and I definitely don't want her knowing."
Curaçao chuckled over the phone and he raised one eyebrow questioningly. He hadn't said anything funny, so why the laughter?
"You know, Edward, asking Bourbon isn't the only way of retrieving the information from that place…" she said and he knew she would be smirking at him if he were standing before her.
"Emma, what are you…?" he began warily.
Curaçao didn't even wait for him to finish. "-I can steal it easily. I have the skills to break in and get out all on my own and my brain's unique memorization ability is the prefect storage mechanism for the data without fussing over technological impediments or worrying about corrupted data. Also, this way if it's me doing the work, we don't have to worry about telling anyone else about our suspicions of infiltration."
She had a point. Several points in fact and he liked the idea of continuing to rely on only one person, especially when that person was his younger twin. Even if something happened and she was discovered, Curaçao was a formidable one-woman army that could break out and escape without trouble. She was the best person for the job. Yet for some reason, he still felt uneasy. Was it just because she was his little sister? He was supposed to worry; that was what big brothers did, no matter how talented or capable their younger siblings were.
"Alright, you can do it," he consented and then smirked slightly. "It's not like I could stop you even if I wasn't on the other side of the world right now."
Curaçao laughed heartily and sighed in amusement after a while. "Oh, that's cute, Gin; you thinking I need your permission. I was planning on infiltrating the NPA whether you gave me permission or not. I'll probably do it tonight, so I can get it out of the way before I'm no longer capable."
"No longer capa- Emma, what do you mean by that?" Gin demanded, alarmed by her word choice.
"Calm down, Gin, it's nothing serious or life-threatening… Actually it is serious and I guess it could be considered life-threatening if things go wrong-"
"Emma, what the hell happened?!" he shouted directly into the phone still on speaker, his heart rate picking up speed and his irises shrinking to tiny pinpricks of fear at the thought of something bad happening to his twin.
"I told you to calm down already; it's nothing bad," Curaçao scolded with unflappable calm. "It's just that this is going to have to be my last dangerous field assignment for a while since I'll be assigned to desk duty soon."
She might as well have spoken in a foreign language. Curaçao didn't mind doing office work, but she hated being stuck behind a desk full-time, and that's why she worked so well as Rum's right-hand agent. "Why?!"
"Nothing much. My birth control just failed me last week, sooo… congratulations, Gin! It looks like you're going to be an uncle in about nine months," she said casually and hung up.
Gin stood in front of the bathroom sink staring blankly at his stunned reflection in the mirror while he held his phone, speechless with shock.
Birth control… uncle… nine months… baby?!
That finally shook him out of his stupor and his expression contorted with rage as he turned off the speaker phone and furiously dialed the number of the one responsible for this. Rum had barely answered the phone when Gin yelled straight into his ear, "RUM, YOU'RE DEAD!"
"Yow! The fuck- what the hell did I do this time?!" Rum protested irately.
"Knocked up my sister, that's what!" Gin snarled back.
Dead silence met his pronouncement on the other end until he finally heard a quiet, awed, "Oh…! I did? I mean, she's-?"
"-Don't you 'Oh!' me! Take responsibility, you fucking pirate bastard!" Gin shouted.
"Again with the-! Missing an eye does not automatically make me a pirate!"
"No, but it's still a perfect moniker for a sister stealer!" Gin retorted angrily. He didn't care if he was in Germany while Rum was still safe from immediate bodily harm in Japan, he was not letting Rum off the hook for this!
()()()()()
Curaçao smirked as she hung up on her big brother and put the phone away. "Sorry, Taichi…" she murmured happily to herself, using Rum's first name. "… but big brother's going to try and kill you anyway, so I had to tell him while he was out of the country."
Did she have to leave Rum in the dark about her pregnancy before telling her brother first? No, but it was more fun that way. Since Gin wouldn't actually kill Rum without sufficient reason – and she was sure pregnancy didn't count, no matter how furious he would be at Rum – she had to give him other opportunities to vent his hostile feelings at her lover. See? She was a good sister looking out for her brother.
Rum had still been in his office when she had left him for the day, so he was probably still up there and being berated right this moment by her highly-paranoid, overprotective twin who would be more than happy to rip him a new one if he wasn't stuck in Berlin. He was working with Riesling to determine the suitability of a fellow BND agent for potential recruitment into the MiB. Curaçao, on the other hand, was nearly at her car in the parking garage and already mentally planning for the infiltration of the NPA Headquarters she was going to do tonight. Very few agents could plan and implement such an activity in less than twenty-four hours, much less do it all in one night, but well… she was talented, experienced, and possessed a spectacular memory, so she was confident.
Curaçao never saw it coming.
Something sharp struck her in the neck and she gasped, quickly ripping it out, but whatever she'd been hit with was already starting to take effect. It felt as though something had kicked her hard in the chest and she leaned against her car, breathless and trying desperately to shake it off. Her first response would have been to shoot out the injection site to eject the chemical from her bloodstream, but she couldn't do that this time without killing herself. She hadn't heard anything, not a single suspicious sound, and who… who could have shot her? She was still in the MiB parking garage and nobody but other MiB agents could… Curaçao fought to turn around to find the person- the traitor who'd shot her, but her body was resisting and becoming unresponsive. She put everything she had into fighting her own body for control and willed her neck muscles to twist around. It was a monumental effort and she struggled for every inch even as she felt her conscious mind growing more and more distant. She managed to get one brief glance over her shoulder and her eyes widened in shock at the approaching figure.
"You…!" she uttered, her last consciously-chosen word before she was imprisoned in her own mind, violently hurled into the background, perfectly aware of what was happening around her, but unable to act or respond. It was as if she was now watching a movie of somebody else's life.
The figure came out of the shadows and the evening moonlight illuminated the long blond tresses and tall, voluptuous form of Vermouth.
"Sorry, Curaçao," she said with a somber expression that lacked feeling as she reached up and caressed her cheek with the back of her hand.
Curaçao didn't respond at all and only stared blankly at the older woman. Vermouth's hand slid down her cheek and caught her chin with her fingers, forcing her mismatched blue eyes to look into Vermouth's turquoise ones. It was an unnecessary gesture. If Vermouth had simply told her to look at her, she would have done so. She would do anything she was told right now.
"I do still like you, despite you being his precious little sister, but I have plans and I can't let you or Gin interfere with them, so now you have to work for me again. I'm afraid I only heard part of the conversation you were having with brother dearest, but you told him you were going to break into the NPA Headquarters tonight, didn't you? Why don't you tell me more about why you were going to do such a thing and what information it is you're seeking that you can't just ask Bourbon for it? Oh…" she smiled slyly in the manner of a mongoose that's stumbled upon a secret treasure trove of bird eggs to feast upon. "… and congratulations on the baby, by the way."
Cliffhanger! Might be my first one of this story. The next chapter is 'Darkest Nightmare' which I have been DYING to get to since I first started planning out this story as a full-length novel thing! I'm super excited to write it, but it probably won't even be done next month. I'm expecting maybe April will be the soonest it's ready, but definitely don't count on that.
Yes, I'm calling Kogoro by his English dub moniker 'Sleeping Sleuth' rather than 'Sleeping Kogoro'. I personally think the former sounds better.