Author's Name: Funny, I've been keeping track of the days that I wrote more to this chapter, and if I'd written something down every single day, I'd have had this chapter done in a week. As it is, I literally wrote 75% of this chapter over the past four days. Amazing what I can do when I sit down and just do it.
One Truth: Part 2
"Goodness, Sherry, how many voicemails did you both leave me?" Gin murmured, quietly under his breath since Sherry was still sleeping, as he deleted another message.
It was only about 8:30, but Sherry showed no signs of wakefulness. She'd shrunk back into a child around 10:15 last night, and it had been a bit of a hassle finding her clothes since neither of them were comfortable sharing the same bed naked while her body was prepubescent. She'd kept her word about being determined not to leave him, but he'd have to take her back home today. She couldn't stay with him, not like this.
While he waited for her to wake up though, Gin had decided to plug his phone into the charger and check his messages. Needless to say, there were a lot. He was more surprised the inbox hadn't filled up. Of them all, there was one voicemail each from 'that person', Kir, Korn, and Riesling, and two were from Chianti while all the rest were from Vodka and Sherry. Now there was only one message left on his phone and he frowned when he saw both the timestamp and the number. It was Vodka from last night long after he'd broken into his apartment and dropped off Sherry. Why…?
He pressed the 'play' button and brought it to his ear to listen. As he did so, his eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot up. Vermouth! She could- she was a shapeshifter!
'Can your Organization look at two completely normal-looking, normal-response, healthy human cells and discern which one belongs to an alien?'
And 'that person' was-!
'… there's a rumor Pandora has infiltrated into the highest levels of your precious Organization.'
No, it couldn't be!
Gin immediately called Vodka's cellphone and his stomach dropped when it went straight to Vodka's voicemail without ringing. His phone was off, and that could mean only one of two things. He had either been captured or was already… Gin shook his head abruptly. No, not without a body. Friend or enemy alike, in his line of work, nothing was certain without a body, but he had no time to lose. Vodka and the Organization were already in jeopardy and the longer he waited, the less likely he'd be able to take action to fix it. He'd already missed Vodka's crucial voicemail from last night; he couldn't waste any more time.
He reached over to Sherry and shook her shoulder sharply. "Sherry, wake up. We need to leave."
She stirred and blinked groggily up at him as she sat up rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "Hm? Gin? What's going on?"
"Vermouth's not human, she's a shapeshifter. Vodka saw it all: she stole my likeness to enter headquarters without interference and used it to approach 'that person' and inject him with the mind control drug. And with him under her control, she can easily get to other high-ranking staff like Rum or Chardonnay and bring the entire Organization to its knees if she wants. She's… she's Pandora," Gin said quickly and urgently as he got out of bed and started getting properly dressed.
Sherry was wide awake in an instant and she jumped out of bed, staring up at him worriedly. "Is Vodka okay? Is he safe?"
His jaw tightened and his hands clenched into fists. "I tried to reach him this morning, but all I got was his voicemail with no ringing."
Sherry gasped. "What are we going to do?"
He'd been thinking about that, and there was only one solution he could come up with that they could put into action quickly. "We need Kudo and the FBI's help."
()()()()()
Conan Edogawa was just finishing breakfast when his phone pinged with a text notification. He set down his chopsticks and pulled his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans to view the screen.
The message read: Come over to the Professor's house this morning as soon as you can. I need to talk to you about something.
Conan's brow furrowed as he reread the message. The tone sounded urgent, what could she need him to come over- wait! Was it the antidote? Had she made another one and wanted him to test it?!
Conan leapt to his feet and was nearly halfway to the door when a sharp voice halted him in his tracks. "Hey, where do you think you're running off to?" Crap. Ran.
"Uhh, I was just going to head over to the Professor's," Conan explained as he turned around to face her.
"This early in the morning?" Ran asked skeptically.
"Yeah, Haibara wants to talk to me in person about something, see?" Conan said as he showed her the phone screen, grateful that he wasn't lying for once.
The creases in Ran's brow eased after she confirmed the words for herself and she nodded. "Alright, but you're not going anywhere until you help me clean up from breakfast first."
"Okay…" Conan sighed with resignation and trooped back to the low dining table to help clean up the remaining food and dishes. If he got it done quickly though, he'd be able to leave sooner and maybe could return to his normal body again!
He finished in what was probably a new record for him and quickly grabbed his skateboard from Kogoro's room then darted out the door down the stairs past the Detective Agency to the street below. He tossed the board to the ground and jumped on it. The skateboard hummed to life and then blasted forward taking him where he directed it down the streets out of the shopping district to the residential one where his and Dr. Agasa's houses both resided.
As soon as he neared the Professor's house, he slowed down and hopped off, then entered the yard. He opened the door, or rather tried to because it jerked his shoulder instead and the door remained firmly shut. His brow furrowed and he tried the door more carefully this time. It pulled outward a little, but then caught on something: the lock.
Conan huffed in annoyance as he pulled out his phone and called Haibara. The least she could do was unlock the door if she was expecting him. He listened to it ring several times before it finally went to voicemail which made Conan scowl. He knew she was awake, was she just messing with him again? He hung up without leaving a message and instead called the Professor, hoping that he was awake, that his phone was on, and that he would be able to hear it ringing.
Miraculously, luck was with him on that front. "Hello? Dr. Agasa's."
"Hey, Doc, it's me; can you open the front door?" Conan asked.
"Oh, Shinichi, you're here? Sure, I can let you in, but is everything okay? It's a little early in the morning for you to be making a house call," Agasa said over the line.
"Not my fault. Haibara was the one who called me over saying she needed to tell me something," Conan muttered unhappily.
"Eh? Ai did?" Agasa said. He sounded confused.
"Yeah, why?"
"Uh, no, hold on a moment," Agasa said distractedly, and shortly after, Conan heard the bolt unlock then the door opened for him.
"Thank you," Conan said with a slight smile as he ended the call and stepped inside the house.
"Of course. Can I get you anything?" Agasa asked.
"No, I just finished eating breakfast with the Mouris before coming here," Conan said as he first scanned the living space and then pulled himself up onto one of the tall stools at the counter. "Where is Haibara? Is she down in the basement?"
"Er… ah, well, I guess she is…" the professor said, but he was fidgeting with his fingers and his eyes kept darting around nervously.
"Professor?" Conan inquired.
"She's not here, is she?"
They both jumped at the new voice and whirled around to see Shuichi Akai as Subaru Okiya standing in the entrance. "Mr. Akai?" Conan asked, puzzled by his appearance. He was still using the voice modulator from the choker, but his tone when he spoke was that of the FBI agent, not the pretend graduate student.
"She was home yesterday afternoon until I had to go run errands after which I noticed there was reduced activity in the house and I never saw her even once pass by the windows despite my diligent observations. It was like that all the way into the evening and there has been no change in the state of things since then so far this morning, so given this, I hope you'll forgive my uninvited house call," Akai said coolly, and both his eyes, the green color masked by contacts, were fully open and boring heavily into the Professor as if pinning him in place.
"But Haibara told me to meet me here to talk about something," Conan said, confused.
Agasa quailed under Akai's fierce glare and spoke directly to Conan. "I don't know why she told you that. After we got home from the cake buffet yesterday, she left shortly afterward saying she needed to go out and to not expect her back home until sometime today."
Before Conan could figure out how to respond to this new information, Akai suddenly tensed and hurried over to the nearest window but pressed himself against the wall next to it to peer outside.
"What is it?" Conan asked nervously as he too made for the window, wondering what had the FBI agent on edge.
"One of them is nearby, coming this way," Akai answered quietly.
The color drained out of Conan's face and his heart started beating rapidly in his chest. "One of- you mean the men in black?!"
Was it just coincidence? Or had they found Haibara and figured out who he was? Or maybe they were coming to silence the Doc! He was trying to figure out what to do when he heard a distinct and familiar sound that made Conan's blood run cold. It belonged to a vehicle with a big parallel engine under the hood.
And then the vintage black Porsche pulled into view and stopped just outside Dr. Agasa's house.
The driver's door opened, and he stepped out. Tall, long-haired, and black-clothed exactly how Conan remembered him. Gin was here on his street and staring fixedly at the house. He reached back into the car briefly and when he straightened again, Conan gasped, and Akai's breath hitched. Gin had dragged out Haibara and was holding her by the wrist.
"Something's wrong," Akai muttered, frowning.
Conan, whose mind had started spiraling into a downward panic seeing Gin on his street with Haibara in his grasp, suddenly found his thoughts skidding to a halt and he stared up at Akai in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"If this was an attack, Gin wouldn't approach alone in full morning light advertising his intentions so plainly," Akai explained.
Now Conan found himself frowning. He was right. The Organization operated in the shadows and prioritized its secrecy above all else. Haibara had stated as much and he'd seen the proof of it many times with his own eyes. If Gin was here to eliminate loose ends, then this wasn't the way he would go about doing it. And he had Haibara with him, Conan couldn't ignore that fact. Yet she was neither dead nor looked all that terrified being with him approaching the Professor's house.
The pair walked up the driveway straight to the front door. Akai moved from the window to a position further back in the house that gave him cover while still leaving his line of sight to the front door clear. Conan also moved from the window to stand next to the door on the hinge side. He tapped his watch and the lid popped up. When the door opened, he would be blocked from view of the entrants and he was ready to fire a sleep dart at Gin though he remembered how much good that had done him last time. Well, at the very least, it should slow Gin down long enough for Akai to react and rescue Haibara from Gin's clutches before the man in black recovered. There was a knock on the door and Agasa looked at him with a worried frown. Conan silently waved for him to answer it and he hesitated a moment before stepping forward and opening the door.
"H-Hello, can I help you?" Agasa said, the words tripping over themselves on the way out of his mouth.
Gin answered and his tone sounded urgent, "I'm sorry to impose on you so suddenly without warning, but there's no time. Is Kudo already here?"
Conan froze and Agasa startled. "Eh?! W-What are you talking about?"
"It's alright, Professor. It's time for the revelation," Haibara said soothingly.
Conan's limbs seemed to have stopped working. He couldn't move and his breath was coming quickly. Gin knew he was alive. That he was here. Haibara had called him here, arrived with Gin, and was now speaking of a 'revelation'. An old fear from the early days, long since dead and buried, suddenly surged forth with renewed force and overwhelmed him. She'd sold him out. She was working for them again. Or was it still? Did she ever truly change sides? Then another jolt. The Professor was in on it. Dr. Agasa who'd been his neighbor since before he was born, who'd been his friend since then, who first warned him against telling anyone of the men in black shrinking him, who suggested he live at the Mouri Detective Agency to find clues on his would-be murderers, and who'd made numerous gadgets to assist him in his crime-solving exploits while trapped in the body of a child. The same man who Gin was speaking to like he knew him and was speaking of a revelation with Haibara in his company and no threats being made. Haibara's betrayal hurt, but Agasa's cut him to his core. He'd known him his whole life and trusted him! And all along, he was working for the very Organization that had turned his world upside down.
"I assume Kudo's waiting for me behind the door with his watch and Akai must be here too since I wasn't shot from next door on my way up the drive," Gin said and Conan jumped. He knew about Akai too?! Did that mean Kir was…? "Kudo, Akai, both of you need to come out. I have a lot I need to explain and not a lot of time to do it."
He sounded weary and like he'd rather be doing anything else which struck Conan as odd. Shouldn't Gin be excited to have them so near at hand and caught off-guard? And if his goal was to kill them, he wasn't being stealthy about it at all.
Haibara came around the edge of the door and found him lurking there. "It's alright, Kudo. Neither of you will be hurt nor anyone else threatened. We really do just need to talk to you."
"We?" Conan repeated with a bitter smile. "So you really are on his side."
Haibara winced and averted her gaze from his. "In this instance, yes," she said softly.
"I suppose whether I believe you or not doesn't matter because if it's a lie, I'm dead anyway," Conan said with resignation as he moved out from behind the door to face the man who'd shrunk him. Gin was already here and knew he and Akai were both alive. Conan had no plan or trick that could save him if Gin really was here to kill them, no matter what Haibara said.
Gin stared down at him, his expression as cool and dispassionate as he remembered. "Hard to believe it's been less than a week since I last saw you."
Conan blinked rapidly and his brow furrowed in confusion. Less than a week? What was he talking about? The last time he saw Gin was back at the train station coin locker where he'd nearly gotten Vodka's fingerprints and that was a long time ago. That was even before he'd confronted Vermouth near the warehouses at the docks.
"Oh my. I didn't realize you had other guests coming over."
Conan turned around and saw Akai, still in his Subaru Okiya disguise, seem to appear in the room by coming from the direction of the bathroom. He affected a curious air and Conan glanced at Gin and Haibara out of the corner of his eyes. He'd never told Haibara who Okiya really was, so she couldn't have told Gin about him either.
Neither of them seemed phased by Okiya's appearance though and Gin said, "Yes, good to see you alive too, Akai, but you already being here does make things easier."
Akai didn't react to Gin's words, but Conan did, staring up at him dumbfounded. How had he known about his disguise?! Had Bourbon finally spilled his suspicions to the Organization to sell out Akai in order to get promoted even when he lacked hard evidence?
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. My name is Subaru Okiya and I'm just a graduate student who lives next door to Dr. Agasa and sometimes helps him out with his research," Akai said placidly.
Gin huffed. "Tell yourself whatever you want. I don't care, I just need you to listen. Both of you," he said, shooting a pointed look down at Conan.
He strode over to the island bar in the center of Agasa's house and sat down in one of the stools directly opposite of Akai. Haibara joined him on a stool next to him and Conan took a seat halfway between them and Akai within range of his sleep dart. Agasa remained standing off to the side looking anxious and uncertain.
"Now, much as I dislike this situation and know how distrustful you two are of me and my intentions, circumstances compel me to reveal the truth of a reality you are completely and intentionally ignorant of, and I request that you don't interrupt me until I am finished," Gin said sharply with a bit of a glare at he and Akai. Then he took a deep breath and began again. "First of all, the Organization as you know it does not exist. There is no crime syndicate and everything you have witnessed that has led you to believe such was either a constructed fabrication, an unplanned event you were only partially witness to without sufficient context, or a memory of an event we modified because there was no other alternative."
Conan was already lost. What Gin was saying made no sense at all, but he held his tongue for the moment.
"What the Organization really is… is a branch of an international group known as the Men in Black that monitors and policies alien activity on earth."
Conan blinked. Once. Twice. Then glanced at Akai who met his gaze. Had they heard that right?
"Aliens?" Conan asked in disbelief.
"I said no interruptions," Gin reminded him with a sharp glare. "And yes, aliens. Aliens are not only real but have been living on this planet since the 1960s with many of them posing as normal, functional human beings with maybe a few odd quirks. Those that don't or have landed here illegally, we neutralize in the most effective manner possible whether that means capture and arrest or elimination, and then we take care of the cleanup and memory modification to prevent civilians from remembering they saw any aliens and causing the whole world to panic. The original branch in America just does a clean wipe of anything alien-related, but our boss here in the Japanese branch decided to take a different approach and let the existence of the Organization be hinted at to global intelligence agencies to garner high quality recruits and facilitate cooperation with the various governmental bodies, so all of the NOCs who have infiltrated and qualified for codenamed status are in fact liaisons for their respective organizations: Bourbon and Scotch for the PSB's Secret Police, Riesling for the BND, Kir for the CIA and also Ethan Hondou though he never accepted a codename, Stout for MI6, and Aquavit for the CSIS just to name a few." Gin then fixed his gaze intently upon Akai. "Even your boss, James Black, was a former MiB agent though for the American branch and he doesn't remember it anyway since his memories were erased when he quit per protocol."
"Mr. James was?!" Conan exclaimed.
This time, Gin didn't call him out on his outburst. "Now I realize this will be difficult for you both to believe given your own experiences with the Organization, but I will attempt to debunk the biggest ones. Akai, you were supposed to become our FBI liaison after you received your codename. We knew who you were and who you worked for within the first year of your infiltration and we allowed it, making sure you never saw anything that you shouldn't just yet. The meeting that I had arranged with you was to reveal the Organization's true nature before you had time to use your newfound status to arrange an unnecessary trap. However, you forewent that meeting and that was the night Scotch died with you involved, Bourbon claiming you'd killed him, and you not protesting it. By the time we'd sorted through that mess as best we could, given the fact we couldn't interrogate you properly yet, you'd already been codenamed for too long without knowing about the alien aspects. I tried to arrange another meeting with you, but you decided that was the perfect time to set a trap to capture me, so we let you go as I was not about to risk my life and freedom on someone who didn't even have the patience to use their newfound status to try and advance further within the Organization."
Conan looked over at Akai curiously and saw his eyes were hard and his jaw was tight. James had told him the parts about their attempt to capture Gin, but he was unfamiliar with the part about Scotch. Was that the reason Bourbon hated Akai so much?
"As for you, Kudo," Gin said, drawing Conan's attention quickly back to him. "Do you really think that Sherry accidentally created a drug that has the almost magical side effect of occasionally youthening people instead of killing them?"
Conan's jaw fell open and he looked to Haibara who nodded.
"It's true. The drug I made does rely on cell destruction for it to work, but it was never intended to be a poison. It wasn't one percent of rats that shrunk in the experiments I conducted, but one hundred percent. Your very first meeting with Gin and Vodka was scripted from the start to intentionally shrink you while leaving you with the impression they were trying to kill you," she said.
"But… why…?"
"You weren't aware of it, but your stint as a detective accidentally led you to accusing, albeit correctly, an alien known as a Quantaban of some of his illegal business practices and he was the equivalent of a yakuza or mob boss with a lot of money and allies across the galaxy. He put a hefty bounty on your head for your execution as revenge, and I was aware of all this because I was actually following your activity very closely at the time. You were a famous local detective in the area with good connections to the police and I was hopeful you might become a potential candidate for recruitment into the MiB at a future date. When I heard word of the bounty, I proposed the plan to 'that person' of using my new drug to shrink you and rely on your own sense of self-preservation to both make you disappear and keep you out of the public eye. I'd say that part of the plan worked very well," Haibara said, and indeed, she looked a little smug when she said it.
"But if that's the case and your drug really does just shrink people, why are you here?" Conan asked. He still wasn't really buying this story, but he would work out the kinks and figure out where the lie finally unraveled.
Haibara's gaze fell to the counter beneath her hands and she spoke softly. "You've probably already guessed that I didn't really run away from the Organization. My sister was killed, but not by Gin. In fact, she was already dead before you even met her. That was an alien who had killed her and… and removed her skin and wore it like a full-body suit to impersonate her, probably to get close to me. It was a good actor too; the first hint Gin had that something was wrong with her was when he saw her phone and the text she sent to Akai talking about getting out of the Organization. After that, it was decided that I needed to go into hiding too, so I was sent here both for my own safety and to keep an eye on you, to give you the semblance of making progress while constantly reminding you of how dangerous Gin and the Organization were. That part you didn't listen to me so well on." Gin grunted in agreement, much to Conan's minor annoyance.
"Alright, now that we've got the basic premise out of the way, let's get through some of the nonsense you both saw that you have as evidence for the Organization's criminal activity," Gin said brusquely and he addressed each of them in turn.
Most of the events Gin mentioned to Akai were unfamiliar to Conan as they happened during his three-year infiltration, but for Conan, there were many other instances brought up apart from Akemi's murder. The man Vodka was blackmailing in their first encounter was just acting per the script and the money in the briefcase was all fake anyway. The man Pisco killed at the Mourning Party was a terrorist and Pisco himself was actually an alien impersonating him. Gin really was there at the Haido City Hotel though, but he and Haibara both believed the other was a fake since Gin didn't know she'd found a way to regain her adult body and she'd just been kidnapped by a fake Pisco. The apologetic way in which Gin spoke of it and stared down at Haibara made Conan's brow furrow in suspicion, but he didn't have time to think on it more before Gin continued.
They really were trying to get a new software program from Itakura, but however Vermouth had gotten his cooperation initially ended up backfiring and instead, they got nothing. The whole assassination plot with Kir was really just one big elaborate scenario to make Kudo think he was making progress, though he got more out of it than they intended by the time the Organization got Kir back. Kir didn't kill her father, but she did kill the alien who did so, and she was tortured by it for information, it being the same alien who had killed Akai's father and blinded Rum in one eye seventeen years ago with its partner that arrived afterward being an ally of the alien, not of Ethan. Rikumichi Kusuda was actually a brain parasite and the body that died was the living clone host they provided specifically for such dangerous reconnaissance missions. Kir had informed him of the entire plan to fake Akai's death as soon as she was rescued and out of hearing of the conscious FBI agent in the van with her, but Gin had allowed it to proceed anyway since to do otherwise would be suspicious. The Raven Mystery Train was supposed to be just another scenario, but that hadn't gone according to plan either.
Abruptly, Gin broke off when he started to discuss the recent incident with the Organization involving the NOCs and Touto Aquarium, but Haibara picked up the story for him and explained that Curaçao had been under the effect of a powerful alien mind control serum that made her steal the NOC list and cause all that damage on the bridge. Informed by the text she sent to Rum, the German, Canadian, and British NOCs were immediately sent into hiding with faked deaths and then Bourbon and Kir were interrogated regarding the truth of their allegiance to see if they were also mind controlled or not. The Organization shooting up the Ferris wheel before and after its flight capabilities were damaged was because they were trying to shoot an alien inside and the Ferris wheel breaking off its axis was just collateral damage.
"I don't remember any of that!" Conan said with a puzzled frown.
"That's because your memory of the alien parts you witnessed was erased and rewritten since that was easier than trying to explain away mass destruction of the park that we didn't have time to clean up," Haibara explained.
Conan grudgingly had to admit that Gin had covered most of his encounters with the Organization, but there were some notable exceptions as well.
"You excluded most of Vermouth's activity from your recounting," Akai pointed out, no longer pretending to be just a hapless graduate student in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gin's lips curled into a silent snarl. "That's because she's the reason I'm telling you all this. Vermouth's not even human, she's an alien shapeshifter called Pandora and she's been trying to kill Sherry constantly this past year with only barely veiled pretense of doing otherwise. She was also the one who used the mind control drug on Curaçao, Irish, Calvados, and probably Scotch, and she was the one who sent the Klythonian to kill and impersonate Akemi. She may even be indirectly responsible for Ethan Hondou and Tsutomu Akai's murders as well."
Akai drew in a sharp breath and Conan gaped, but Gin gave them no time to process the information before he started speaking again.
"Last night, she moved against the Organization directly and brought 'that person' under her mind control drug as well. Her original plan was probably to slowly bring the entire Organization under her heel by injecting the drug into the top-level executives first and work her way from the top down. Unfortunately for her, Vodka witnessed her attack on 'that person', so she's forced to hasten her plans forward to keep her advantage, but that also means less time for me and the rest of the Organization to retaliate effectively to reclaim control. I may not know what Vermouth's ultimate goal is, but it won't be good for the Earth. At the very least, she'd still want Sherry dead. That's why I need your help. I need to stop Vermouth by any means necessary, even if that means teaming up with you two and the FBI."
Conan could hardly believe what he was hearing. Really? Aliens living on Earth without anyone knowing? And no satellites or space equipment or even the hobbyist astronomer with a high-powered telescope had ever seen any sign of extraterrestrial spaceships just hanging out in Earth's orbit? It was just too unbelievable and yet Gin had an alternate explanation for every counter Conan could have thought of. He really only had one conclusion to draw from all this.
"You're crazy," Conan said at last. "That, or you're both delusional conspiracy theorists. You have no evidence at all that anything you've said about this alien explanation is true. It's just too much to believe. Even though I don't understand why you haven't tried to kill Akai and I yet if you know we're alive, it still makes more sense that you and the Organization are all just a bunch of underground criminals."
"Shinichi, they do have evidence."
Conan halted in his tirade and looked back over his shoulder at Dr. Agasa who was watching him sadly.
"… Professor?"
Agasa reached up and touched his left ear. There was a beep and a soft hiss of steam escaped from around it. His face seemed to extend outward and Conan watched with horrified fascination as his face then opened outward on a hinge above the right ear. What lay on the other side of the rotating face wasn't muscles or bone, but metal, flashing lights, blue screens, speakers, and a tiny, four-limbed… thing about six inches tall with very deep-wrinkled, green-tinged gray skin, a giant head for its body, and comically bulbous gray eyes so large that the small mouth and slit nostrils seemed to have been added to the face as an afterthought.
"D-Dr. Agasa…?" Conan stammered as he stared hard at the tiny creature, unable to process what he was seeing.
Its face smiled fondly at him as he reached for one of the levers in front of his legs and said. "Yes, Shinichi, it's me, your old friend Dr. Hiroshi Agasa, and for the first time, we're finally seeing each other face to face, though I would have wished for it to be under different circumstances." His voice projected from the miniature microphone Conan had mistaken for a lever, but it was still the voice of the man he'd grown up next door to.
"You… You're an alien?" Conan said dumbfounded.
"I am. I'm an Arquillian that retired to Earth a long time ago from my former position as the Head Scientist of the royal family to live out the rest of my years in peaceful tranquility," Agasa said. "It has been a joy and a privilege being your friend, watching you and Ran grow up, and creating new gadgets and games for you and the kids to use."
"Is Agasa your real name?" Conan inquired.
"It's not the name I was born with if that's what you mean. That would be Lilinoonilil, but Agasa is my legal identity here on Earth," Agasa answered.
"And what Gin and Haibara have said? Is that all true?" Even with this unexpected revelation that this man he'd known his whole life wasn't even a man, he still trusted him more than he did those two.
"I'm afraid it is," Agasa said with a somber nod. "When I was informed of the danger you'd unwittingly gotten yourself into, I agreed to do anything I could to help keep you safe, so I knew of the plan to shrink you and what day that would happen, so that I could intercept you and warn you to keep your head low. I hated lying to you, but I preferred that to you being dead. When Ai arrived later, she kept me out of the loop on most things relating to the MiB to spare me the necessity of lying to you myself, which I'm immensely grateful for. It was easier to pretend ignorance and learn about the Black Organization directly from her and your own investigations, though the case with Mr. Itakura had me very worried."
Conan had nothing else to say. How could he when the evidence was right in front of him? Aliens were real and living on Earth and he'd spent nearly a year in hiding as a kid trying to take down a secret crime organization that was actually a secret alien immigration and law enforcement agency.
With no other choice, Conan turned back to Gin, who was watching him expectantly. "You said you need our help. What exactly is it that you need us to do?"
Gin nodded his head at him and then pointed at Akai, focusing his gaze on him as he did so. "I need you to get in contact with James Black to let him know what's going on and have him recruit all available FBI agents here in Japan within Tokyo and the nearby surrounding areas. That combined with Bourbon's police force recruitment will give us our greatest numbers since I can't rely on the surety of MiB ones with 'that person' and probably Rum by now as well under Vermouth's mind control. Sherry and I were able to call a few in the car on our way here, but I still have more NOCs to update on the current situation, so they're not blindsided and can make preparations for the worst if it comes to that."
"I understand," Akai said grimly after turning off the choker and he pulled out his cellphone to call his boss.
()()()()()
Subtly, Gin let himself relax, the tension seeping out of his shoulders and Sherry patted his arm gently. He had been more nervous about how this meeting would go than he'd let on, and he was surprised with how readily Akai and Kudo had accepted the truth. No weapons had been fired and there was no argumentative yelling or anything. He supposed their curiosity over his abnormal behavior had played a role in their open-mindedness as well as the fact that he did cover an extensive list of events that the two were involved in. He had their support though, and that was ultimately the only thing that mattered.
His phone started ringing and he removed it from his coat. His eyes shot wide open when he saw the caller ID. Vodka! He answered it immediately. "Vodka, is that you?"
"And a good morning to you too, Gin," a familiar female voice laughed, and Gin scowled darkly. Vermouth…
"Where is Vodka? What have you done with him?!" Gin demanded furiously.
"There's no need to worry your pretty little head about your dear partner, Gin," Vermouth cooed with mock reassurance. "He's still alive and completely unharmed except for a little bump on his head, but that will heal. I've been taking very good care of him in your absence. He's so well-endowed, yet so naïve; it was just like when I took your virginity years ago."
Gin slammed his fist on the counter and shot to his feet, teeth bared and eyes wild. "You bitch, leave him alone!"
"My, my, what an emotional reaction from you, Gin; it's so rare to hear you care so much about something. I'm already finished with him besides. Vodka was just a quick little diversion before I returned my attention to the main business at hand."
"And what. business. is. that?" Gin growled through gritted teeth.
"Vodka's alive for the moment, but I could very easily change that if you don't cooperate and agree to my terms," she said smoothly.
Gin scoffed. "Like any deal with a scheming, manipulative liar like you would be worth the paper it's written on."
"Now, Gin, you shouldn't be so readily dismissive," Vermouth chided. "Afterall, your best friend's life hangs in the balance. You wouldn't want to have his blood on your hands too, now would you?"
A cold wave washed through him with her words. Vodka was in her power and he didn't doubt that Vermouth would make do on her threat. But… somehow he could also imagine what Vodka would say to him right then if he could.
Gin's lips thinned and he said tightly, "Vodka would scold me for putting his life above the rest of the world."
Now it was Vermouth who scoffed. "A nice sentiment, Gin, but one that means nothing to you. You don't value human lives in the same vein as Vodka, Curaçao, and Akemi, or you never would have earned the reputation you bear."
The mention of Akemi and Curaçao brought back his rage in full force. She was the one who had them both killed! But even as he geared up to blast her with his fury, some of his sense snuck back into his thoughts. Vermouth was intentionally baiting him, but why? To make him angry and slip up? If they were face to face, perhaps, but not over a phone call with too much time and distance between them. Time. It had to be time. Time he spent on the phone with her meant time not spent organizing the attack on headquarters, but also- his location! She was trying to figure out where he was!
"Damn you!" he bellowed as he ended the call, not for the first time wishing for the old satisfaction of being able to slam it down.
"Gin, what happened?!" Sherry demanded, watching him anxiously and Gin saw similar expressions on the other's faces, though Akai's was muted as usual.
He forced down his anger and frustration to keep from accidentally lashing out at them. Vodka was alive and that was some good news, but he still wasn't safe. "Vermouth was taunting me about how she has Vodka and could use him against me if she felt so inclined in a bid to stall for time to track down my current location."
"And did she?" Sherry asked.
Gin shook his head. "I don't know, but I'm not taking any chances. Dr. Agasa, would you mind staying over with the Mouris for the time being? Even if someone should come after you, Detective Mouri knows judo and his daughter knows karate, so you should be safer with them than here on your own if Vermouth sends someone after you."
"Now hold on a minute!" Kudo exclaimed. "Ran and her dad know nothing about any of this! You can't just throw them into danger they're not prepared for with no forewarning!"
Gin raised an eyebrow at the kid. "Funny you of all people would say such a thing," he commented. "But in this case, they truly are the safest place that Agasa could go to. During the scenario when Kir became comatose from her motorcycle accident and was captured by the FBI, even though we never had any intention of actually hurting Kogoro Mouri, Vermouth was adamant about not risking his well-being, even for the sake of pretending. For better or worse, the Kudos and the Mouris are her weak point and she will suffer no harm to come to them."
Kudo scowled at him, but no further protests passed his lips. It would have to be enough.
"Well, Gin, if you're planning on storming your own headquarters and I'm temporarily relocating to the Mouris, I suppose I won't be needing to take any of these along," said Agasa, who had already resealed the cockpit of his robot exoskeleton, and clicked a button on a remote that seemed to have materialized into existence in his hand.
The sound of active machinery and the fine vibrations of large things moving drew everyone's attention to one of the walls that developed a seamless crack down the middle, and then both halves spun 180 degrees on a vertical axle embedded in the wall to reveal rows upon rows of high-grade alien weapons tech. Kudo's jaw dropped, Akai's eyes widened, Sherry stared, and even Gin was surprised by the presence, quantity, and variety of armaments here.
Gin was also the first to recover his speech. "Why do you even have all this?" he demanded incredulously as he approached the wall and examined an Atomic Carbine 600. These were the kind of weapons Gin had stored in the walls of his own home, and this man was a retiredArquillian scientist!
Agasa's face flushed and he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Some of them I have for tinkering around with on some of my projects, but the other ones I stockpiled after I was told Shinichi was in danger, just in case they ended up being necessary."
"I know you don't have the proper licensing for some of these," Sherry said sharply. She had moved closer to the wall and was eying some of the higher-class weapons like the Jackhammer.
"No, I don't. I'm sorry," Agasa apologized.
"We can fine you for it later. Right now, we need all the weapons we can get our hands on to arm the rest of the FBI and Secret Police before moving on to the other weapons storage warehouses," Gin said as he lifted a Particle Beam Rifle and tossed it to Akai who caught it. "You'll probably like this. It fires a long-range blast of concentrated heat resembling a laser. It does emit light though, so be on guard against that."
"That's not all I have to offer," Agasa said as Akai began to scrutinize the alien weapon with a mix of skepticism and curiosity.
With a smile and a wink to Sherry, Agasa went into another room and came back holding a cup-sized bottle full of a thick milky white liquid.
Sherry gasped. "Professor, is that…?"
"An antidote to the mind control serum," Agasa said proudly as he gave her the bottle. "Since this was created based off the concoction we found in the dazzleflies, I don't know how effective it will be against Vermouth's current version if the recipe has changed, but it should still have some counteractive effects against the drug, and for some reason. Even so, this will probably be more helpful to you than me right now."
"Thank you so much, Professor," Sherry said with a grateful smile for the elderly alien, which turned cheeky after a bit right before she asked, "Now, you don't happen to have a medical dart gun on hand, do you?"
Agasa laughed heartily and even Gin smiled a little. It was nice to hear laughter, despite everything that had happened and still needed to be done. No wonder Sherry was fond of him.
()()()()()
Vermouth clicked her tongue and set Vodka's phone on the desk then started tapping her fingers on the old hardwood. Gin had caught on too fast. Just a few more seconds and she would have had his location. Vodka's phone call to him had done its damage, but she might still be able to salvage the situation. Apart from his partner, there was only one other person left alive that Gin loved, and that was Sherry. With Vodka inaccessible, Gin would no doubt seek her out to protect her himself and if Gin arrived at the Arquillian's house, it was guaranteed to draw the attention of the diligent FBI agent living next door. Gin might even be counting on that if he planned to recruit the available FBI agents in Japan to help him fight her.
She grimaced suddenly. And if Akai was going to be recruited, it was possible that her Cool Guy would be recruited as well. She couldn't care less about Akai or anyone in the FBI, but Shinichi was another matter. She cared about him a great deal and couldn't stand the thought of him being hurt, especially if he were fighting against her, but he was so doggedly persistent that nothing short of extreme, drastic action would force him to stand aside. She would have to come up with a counter plan for him and quickly, but for now, she would deal with Gin.
She looked up from her tapping fingers and surveyed the three men standing before her: Karasuma, Rum, and Vodka, all patiently waiting for their next directive.
"Renya, I want you to order an evacuation of all non-essential personnel from headquarters and to prepare for an emergency lockdown. It seems Gin's gone rogue, mad with grief, and is on his way to bring down the Organization even as we speak," Vermouth said.
Karasuma's black eyes narrowed to thin slits. "Not while I'm still alive, he's not," he said darkly.
"Of course not," Vermouth said smoothly with a smug smile. The mind control drug was working exactly as she had intended it. The victim followed her orders without question, but otherwise their behaviors and mannerisms were the same as that of their normal selves. "And once you deliver that order, would you be a dear and prepare the missile launch weapon systems? Just in case any of the other MiB branches or intelligence agencies wish to attack us."
"It shall be done," Karasuma said and made his way over to the intercom system set in the wall since her position in his desk chair made using the desk's microphone was too much of a hassle at the moment.
"Thank you, Renya," Vermouth said ironically and then fixed her gaze on the Vice Chief. "Rum, I want you to go down to the central communications station and supervise incoming and outgoing traffic. No one outside headquarters can be allowed to know that anything abnormal is going on or they'll pick us off, and you'll also regulate our internal security and communications to ensure our safety from intruders." This was partly a protective measure against Gin, but also against external alien forces that would love to take advantage of her coup to sow their own chaos before she'd had the chance to properly acquire and consolidate her power.
"Understood," Rum said with a slight head bob and left the office to complete his task while Karasuma's voice echoed with the emergency lockdown directive over the loudspeakers.
Vermouth smirked wickedly at her last pawn. "And you, Vodka? You shall remain with me for the time being until your partner finally arrives. I'll be counting on you~!"
"Yes, Vermouth," Vodka said readily without so much as a hint of protest.
Unfortunately, I have no estimate for when I'll have the next chapter finished since the next section is going to be the biggest thing I've ever done. But then again, the very scope of this story is also the biggest thing I've ever done as a writer, so I'm just exercising all kinds of new writing muscles! I do admit, I'm kinda excited about tackling this next step. My earliest long-fic attempts never even came close to this point in the narrative since I always got stuck in the rising action section.