Scarborough Fair

Summary: Kuroba Kaito finds himself in a sticky situation when he's kidnapped by a man who's also guilty for the abduction of three others. How can even the Kaitou Kid escape drug-induced paralysis, a psychotic doctor, a blackmailed housekeeper, and a mansion filled with traps and dungeons?

Pairings: Very minor hints.

A/N: I own nothing except Dr. Hailey, Anita Hailey (though I don't own their names), Kojima Daisuke, Diana (though I don't own their designs) and 'A'. Okita Soshi and Nagashima Shigeo are actual DC people. Think Yaiba and Yoban Saado. Title comes from Simon and Garkunkel song. Also loosely based around Mothy's song, 'Little Garden Girl' feat. Hatsune Miku. May be called alternate name of 'Clockwork Lullaby 2'.

Prequel: "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

Side Story: "Clockwork Relations"

EDIT:(30/01/2013) Errors corrected, thank-you shout out to mountainelements!

Kaito nearly ripped out his hair - much like, a part of his mind noted, the irritated Inspector Nakamouri would do whenever he got away magically - because of the frustration at the nothingness of nothing happening. There was nothing in the room. Nothing. Even a lock-pick, useless as it would have been against the door that was practically a concrete wall, would have comforted him somehow. But no, except three other people and a few plastic plates and dishes, there was nothing, and what he had weren't exactly lock-pick material things.

Or, for that matter, entertainment-worthy. And since he couldn't ask questions on why they had not found lock-pick materials yet. . . ."How are you not dead of boredom yet?"

Three pairs of dead eyes looked at him before drooping down again.

He was probably overreacting, but he had, for as long as he could remember, had something stuffed up his sleeve. Something that could amuse him, keep him busy. A pack of cards. A firecracker. A lighter. A yo-yo. A magic eight ball. Something.

And now he had nothing. His fingers twitched. As soon as he got back to school, he was doing grand-scale magic. Or pulling off a super-fancy heist. Something extravagant. Something where no one would be bored, because by god, boredom had to be a form of torture.

His restlessness seemed to have spread, though, because a very well-napped Okita looked at an equally over-rested Nagashima. "Think it's time for th' exercise?"

The exercise. Since the two of them were in athletics, it was apparently essential that they stayed in shape. Between doing nothing but staring at the white wall, eating, and sleeping, Okita and Nagashima had been doing stretches, push-ups, sit-ups, anything to keep themselves in shape, including running back and forth across the room racing each other.

Kojima didn't do sports, apparently. He thought that what they were doing was a waste of time. He was a very pessimistic guy.

Kaito didn't think it was a waste of time, and joined them, stretching and flexing his muscles. If – when – he got out of this place, he had no intention of getting arrested as Kid just because he had let himself go lax.

While beginning to stretch, he eyed the ceiling with the strange small vents again. The others had informed him that the vents would release sleeping gas to knock them out before being taken to be dressed up and used as a human mannequin for a tea party. It sounded terrible, especially with even the seemingly-lax Okita looking nervous about it.

Like he had noticed before, those vents were too small for any of them to fit through, unless they all went through a magical shrinking phrase till they were around the size of a newborn puppy. Still, he glared at the ceiling. He could, he knew, get himself up into the ceiling's corner. He had done that on the first day – or what felt like the first day to his internal clock. No way of getting out through there, but maybe he missed something. He hoped, for the first time in his life, that he did, but in his heart he knew that wasn't it.

His mind and body told him to focus on keeping fit, so he began push-ups. Bend his arms to lower his body down, come back up after a moment, clap, and repeat the entire process.

But then again, he had always been an amazing multi-tasker. Most magicians were. The plans for this room were pretty simple, not exactly designed to please guests with a fantastic view or pleasant colours. The bathroom had a toilet, a shower stall, and a chute for garbage. Too small for even the amazing Kaitou Kid to fit through.

As for the gadgets at his disposal. . . . He had gotten his own personal set of toiletries when he had woken up, and any extra things he needed would come in with the food on the trays, or so the other guys had said. Unless there was a way to get through with the equipment he had, Kaito had to think up another way.

What about the water? The water from the toilet and the shower stall had to go somewhere. . . maybe if he left the sink and shower running permanently? If he used up enough water, someone looking at the water bills outside of this place had to realize that something was wrong, right?

But there wasn't much of a guarantee of that plan working. All someone who thought this suspicious had to do was phone, and either a terrified Diana-san or the mad doc he'd heard so much about could answer, and give a lie about a malfunctioning sink or lots of visiting family. Besides, they could always just shut it off through a switch of some sort, and deprive them of water entirely.

Still, Kaito decided to keep that as an option, just in case.

"Have any of you ever tried yelling as loud as you could?" he asked.

Kojima scowled. "Screamed my head off when I first got here. Nothing happened."

So the only people who heard Kojima – if they heard him at all through the materials this room was built from – were the ones already aware of him being down here. Or, people who just didn't care. The world was a cold place, where some living beings who called themselves humans just couldn't find it in themselves to take the time to be nice, even just a little.

Heartless, greedy people. Just like the people who had killed his father for the so-called stone of immortality. Just like the person that had kidnapped them for selfish reasons.

Kaito decided, then and there, that he would go down fighting against people like this. His mind began whirring like a machine again. He had to stop putting himself into the situation. He had to isolate it, make it less personal. Poker Face, amazing as it was, did not completely stop emotional strings from getting attached. His next best tool at hand, his ability to slip into the skin of another, might come in handy right about now. See things from a different perspective. But not a killer like Snake, who not only did not care, but would have been more than happy to see them all killed if it ensured his own safety. Someone with a sense of justice.

It took him the time for five push-ups, but he managed to put himself into the shoes of the person with the closest personality around him; Hakuba Saguru. Think Brit, Holmes, time, accusing Kuroba of being Kid the Phantom Thief. Now, here was an interesting puzzle for him to solve. Four seventeen-year old males are imprisoned in a room capable of being filled with sleeping gas that may be easily substituted for poison. In an unknown amount of time, they might die. One of them must get all of the four out of the windowless vault that is most likely underground before anything really bad happens. How?

He nearly bashed his head against the floor when he realized that even Hakuba – or the metaphorical mask of Hakuba he had donned – could not solve this. Not that it was a good idea, anyways. A detective solved mysteries. An artist, a magician thought up ways to make the impossible not only possible, but enjoyable. Kaito growled. His dad could have probably done this in five seconds flat.

Frustrated, he increased the speed of his clapping push-ups and tried to find a way to get out of the abovementioned vault with toothpaste, soap, shampoo, food, toothbrushes, plastic dishes and cutlery in his own chaotic, unpredictable, magical way.

"This could be the perfect setting for a horror movie based around an asylum," Haibara commented as she looked outside the car from her seat.

Shinichi agreed with her statement. The building was gray, concrete, and eerie, like there was a presence hiding within it, something that wasn't quite right.

If Lady A's tech support had been right, then his instincts were correct as well. Somewhere within this house would be a madman kidnapping teenagers for some twisted reason.

Lady A, the phantom thief. Because Japan didn't have enough to deal with, having Kaitou Kid and everything. Now there was a woman who liked to auction off things that didn't even belong to her in the name of charity who might or might not know his secret here.

If he believed in magic, he might have been inclined to believe there was a certain spell of a sort that made him a magnet to trouble and death.

Professor Agasa parked the car a slight distance away, behind the tall decorative bushes to hide them from sight. Well, even if he wasn't being blackmailed-slashed-bribed to take this case, Shinichi knew he would have gotten himself involved anways. Like Lady A, this was also a matter of personal interest to him as well. It was surprising at just how much the four people kidnapped looked like him, and the reason for this was a mystery. He wanted to know what would drive a man with the right resources and the right setting to do this.

A beep drew him out of his thoughts on his personal goals. It was his newest phone, the disposable cell Lady A had given him. The cheap screen glowed brightly, showing a new message from an unknown number. He opened it, already guessing who had sent this.

'Dr. Andrew Hailey, fifty-three years of age, gifted chemist. Mother was Japanese. Seems to use far more electricity and water than what's needed for one person, according to his bills. Also, he went missing seven months ago, but was found unconscious in an alley near his house and was then taken to a hospital three months after his disappearance. He was released after a month of treatment.

'Point of possible interest; he orders lots of old-fashioned fabric, lace, ribbons, and a type of neural-inhibiting drug called atracurium besilate online.

'Hope that helped! :D

'~A'

The letter at the very end of the message confirmed his suspicions. Shinichi closed the phone and stuffed it back into his pocket. Hope that helped. Yeah, right. She was just manipulating him. No wonder her disguise as his mother had been good, she had a personality like Kudo Yukiko's.

"Hey, professor, do you know anything about a doctor named Andrew Hailey?"

His friendly neighbor scrunched his forehead as he tried to place the name in his memory, but it was Haibara who answered him. "Dr. Andrew Hailey? Does he specialize in chemistry?"

"You know him?"

"I heard of him," she answered. "He's somewhat famous in certain parts of the chemistry world with his works on gold and the effects it can have on the human body. I read one of his papers. Brilliant man, if not a bit eccentric."

"Eccentric? In what way?"

She shrugged, examining her nails like she didn't really care. "Apparently, he'd go off every now and then to make a puppet, or a life-sized doll. I saw a picture of a few of his works, and they were remarkably good. Not the kind of work you'd think a man like him would do, but he could have been an artist."

Life-sized doll? That didn't seem too relevant. But if the former Sherry knew about him . . . "Was he in the organization?"

"No, but They wanted him. They thought he would have been a valuable addition to Their ranks, but They never could approach him in the right way."

"Why not?"

"I never got the exact, official details, being stuck in the lab, but I overheard some agents complain. They said it was like he was protected by a guardian angel or something."

Guardian angel or not, he had disappeared for three months over half a year ago. "When did you hear this?"

She frowned, and made a few mental calculations. "A year ago, maybe?"

Suddenly, his personal interest in this case got much, much higher. "Haibara, professor, I think you need to know something."

There was a struggle as a man with a mixed nationality in a slightly-torn lab coat was dragged into a room. A cement room, with a bare light bulb that glowed to show the cracked walls, the stains of brown on the ground that were never fully washed out, down the drain and the metal grills on the ground. The man in the lab coat was immediately strapped to a high-backed chair by his two captors, who left the room silently, almost eagerly. When another man walked into the room, the captive man began to speak immediately. "What is this? I demand you let me go! Do you know who I am? I could have you all thrown in jail for a hundred lifetimes if I-"

"Shut up," the new man in black who had just walked in had a cold voice. No, not just cold. Bored, like this was all a tedious game he was being forced to play till a certain time.

It might have been his bored voice, or his half-lidded eyes that looked scarlet in the harsh light, but the man cowered immediately. This man was dangerous. "What do you want from me?"

"Your total cooperation," the man in black smiled tiredly. "Of course, we'll ask a few questions first, if you don't mind, Dr. Hailey. And excuse us for being suspicious, but our business is one filled with trickery. I'm sure you'll understand if we use some methods to ensure the truth. Perhaps a demonstration?"

"W-what?" Dr. Hailey was a man accustomed to wealth, a good environment, and things going his way. None of this fit with what he was used to. "Who are you?"

"That's a good question. Actually, I'm the owner of several successful newspapers and magazines, but you can call me Armagnac for now," Armagnac hooked an IV drip onto his other arm.

The IV was dripping atracurium besilateinto his system. When his heart pumped the neural inhibiting drug all over his body, he would be a prisoner in his immobilized shell. Armagnac brushed off his hands and gave a pleasant, sincere smile for the first time.

"Shall we begin?"

He opened his eyes. Bad dreams. Bad dreams that interrupted his nap and put him in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

Rubbing his eyes, he stretched his arms, sore from his crash on the desk. Anita wouldn't have wanted him to do this, she would have wanted him to get a good night's sleep, rest decently, and get his body accustomed to a schedule, but he had to work. Even if he died working, he had to finish this drug.

Hopefully, she'd be happy with the playmates he had gotten her while he worked. Kids should be near their own age group . . . or so someone had said.

He rang the bell for Diana-san. Breakfast, strong good coffee, and he'd be ready for another day of hard work. But before, he'd set up the guest room so that Anita could get to know the new boy he had found for her. All of them were polite gentlemen who would treat his daughter like knights from the Round Table – the good ones.

They had to be the nice ones in this new society filled with rowdy youths. After all, their looks were that of a gentleman's.