DISCLAIMER
Sword Art Online (c) Kawahara Reki, Detective Conan (c) Aoyama Gosho.
環太平洋擬装網 (romaji: Kantaiheiyou Gisoumou; official English title: Pacific Rim Imitation Network) (c) Hirasawa Susumu.
Without much ado, let's get rolling with it!
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Chapter 2B – Really High Imitation Diva, Side B
8 August 2035, circa 1155 JST
"Uuuh~ Wh-where am I?" a female voice arose in the car from the rear compartment. To be specific, it was Rika's voice. "Oh, an ambulance, I guess," she trailed after she heard the noise of a siren.
That voice, however, made the driver jerked in panic, and stepped against the throttle as hard as he can, even if her voice was screened by the loud siren one can hear in the car.
"Peter, take it easy! Good thing it's neutral, or we're in for a fine. Or worse, an accident, and none can tell the fate of four of us and the Operation when it happens!" an obviously female voice shouted on the driver. Rika, of course, overheard this shout. It made her wonder who's the fourth person, since she can sense three (this 'Peter', the woman, and Rika herself) in the car. She started to get a feeling that this fourth man is someone so familiar with her.
"But, Shizuka, the last time I drove, I've yet to hear a voice from behind!"
"What kind of car you're used to drive?" the woman asked him.
"A ... a hearse," he answered a few moments later. "The funeral vehicle? No wonder you looked so scared," the woman deduced with a giggle. Rika, overhearing this, can't help but giggle herself.
But the giggle get overheard by the two men in the driving compartment. "Shush down, Shizuka, I think she have heard us. Let's hope he haven't," the man hushed, to be heard by Rika again. She now wonders who is this man the man have mentioned. For an unexplainable reason, her heart beats hard. Could it be him, a voice in her subconscious speaks.
"I fear he have. I've got the feeling that he have awaken before her," Shizuka whispered, yet Rika was able to hear it. "After all, in this kind of business it's better to have a false sense of insecurity, isn't it?"
"Yeah, you've got a point there. Just pray they have no clue what we were speaking, though," the man concluded.
"If any of them can hear it, they should've been able to deduce something about your past, Peter," she reparted.
Aside of gut feeling, Rika has no clue that she and her newlywed husband was in the same car – an armored cargo, as the author have mentioned in Really High Imitation Diva, Side A – yet separated by a wall of plywood. As such, the car she's in have no actual siren. The noise was merely an audio file run through the car's sound system.
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8 March 2035, circa 1150 JST
Somewhere in Beika, Tokyo
That day, Haibara Ai took her husband, Kudou Shinichi, out for a lunch, with her on the driver's seat. She asked him to carry her phone and intercept phone calls for her, so she can know in advance when she got a call and move sideways when she needs to take the call. Cellphone usage while driving is dangerous, not to mention illegal, afterall.
A few minutes later, a phone rang. Shinichi knew it was his wife's, so he reached for the phone in question in the left pocket of his trench coat.
'Masumi?' he mumbled when he saw the name of who called her – Sera Masumi – written on the screen. 'Five hundred yen says she's calling for dear Ai,' he continued, placing bet against no one in particular.
"Good day, can I speak to Sakura?" his guess was proven. "Sorry, this is Tom Leonhart. She's driving," he answered.
"I see. You should thank God you got such good wife, Tommy!" Masumi said cheerfully. "Oi, oi, this isn't time to discuss personal matters, Shizuka!" Shinichi reminded Masumi to get back on topic. Soon, Ai also knew that it was Masumi over the line, so she took steps to move aside so she can take the call.
"Okay, I'm sorry," Masumi said over the line, "Would you inform her that ...," Shinichi, realizing that Ai is moving aside, told Masumi, "Looks like dear Honekawa's going to take over the call soon." "Oh, thank you," is all Masumi managed to say.
FYI, Shinichi's pseudonym in the FBI is Tom Leonhart. Ai's ... maiden pseudonym, if you will, was Sakura Honekawa. The tale that the two were married is true in truth as well as in disguise, so Ai's 'married pseudonym' would be Sakura Leonhart.
Regarding their past as Conan and Ai, respectively, after an incident (the incident was a story on its own, methinks) that turned the two 'kids' to their true selves, Conan cannot but reassume the persona of Shinichi, since he's got a name already before he was shrunk. As for Ai, she shed her past as Shiho away and kept on using Haibara Ai as her name – at least it doesn't change when her full name is written in romaji or hiragana, but not in kanji . After she returned to her true stature, she finally agrees to her foster father's suggestion that her given name uses the kanji for 'love' (i.e., 愛) instead of 'sorrow' (i.e., 哀).
Perhaps those Detective Kids – which she and her husband was a member back when they're trapped in the body of children their age, and then their older sibling figures after they returned to their true statures – surely did a lot on changing her, but I digress.
"Good day. Shizuka?" Ai asked after Shinichi passed the phone over and she got the car on the roadside.
"Sa-Sakura? Have you checked the mail Kayaba have made?" asked Masumi over the line.
"Hm? W-when did he made the mail?" asked Ai in return.
"Twelve, I think," she replied.
"Not a chance. I've been driving the last ... twenty minutes, I think," Ai replied in return. She knew Kayaba is sensible enough not to rely on shared e-mail to pass an urgent information; he'll call the agent in question to pass it.
"Okay, then. I've passed it to Atsuko already, so I'll pass it to you now," Masumi continued.
"Wait. Which Atsuko did you mean?" Ai asked, worrying if this information fell into the wrong Atsuko.
"The fake one. I know you're a close friend of her," replied Masumi.
"'Fake Atsuko,' eh? Is she Yuu ...," Ai nearly spat out the real name of this 'fake Atsuko' before she was cut off by Masumi, "Yuurei (ghost), isn't it? Be careful, you nearly spat out someone's real name, Ai-chan." There was no one bearing the pseudonym Yuurei, either as given pseudonym or family pseudonym, nevermind real ones.
Ironically, it was Masumi who actually spoke someone's real name – Ai's real name – and Ai was quick to form a repartee out of this, "Um, Shizuka, did you realize you actually spat it out?" Good thing Ai didn't reveal whose name was that. Even if she did, there were at least three women whose real given name is Ai, Haibara included, unless she specifically spat out that Masumi's referring to her.
That instant, an 'oh sh!t' expression was painted on Masumi's face. Even Shinichi can sense it from his wife's expression, since his wife wore similar expression before she spoke the line.
"Uh oh. Let's hope they have nothing to figure whose is it, then. I have my worries that they have woken up. Bye, Sakura," Masumi closed the line. It seems that Ai got the unspoken message that what Masumi fears is not that the two men Masumi's carrying on the van can figure something out out of their conversation – they simply have too little clue. Her prime fear is that the men in black can.
reallyhighimitationdivaB_end
To be continued.
A/N: FYI, while the title for the last two chapters, Really High Imitation Diva, looks like a(n inadvertent?) play on Pacific Rim Imitation Network, it was mainly a play on the two new pseudonyms. If you don't get it, Stoner Stanley – as a meme – is also known as Really High Guy, among others. For Yoko Okino ... since her appearance is restricted in Detective Conan franchise, in a sense she's an imitation diva, right?
Regarding the number of Chapter 2A/2B, it's to be understood that the events in those chapters happened at around the same time, but with different frames of reference. *you don't say, Herp~* It's probable that there would be more instances of Side-A-Side-B chapters like this in this fic. Those Side-A-Side-B chapters will always be released together.
Some might wonder, where is Ran? Why did Shinichi married Ai rather than Ran? That, my dear readers, may be explained later in the story.