SailorStar9: After over two months with no update, I present Chapter 124 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?
Pairings: Established!Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 124: The Cameras Targeting Haibara
Time passes...
"Win a whale watching tour in a lottery?" Professor Agasa was sipping hot cocoa as he watched the newest Beika Department advertisement on TV.
"Come to think of it, those kids wanted to go on this tour." Haibara noted. "They invited me to go with them."
"I want to go." Professor Agasa started. "Every man dream of seeing whales. The three of us are going to the department store. I'll get my wallet."
"Isn't your scheduled delivery arriving soon?" Haibara reminded.
"If we don't go soon, they might run out of whale watching lottery slots." Professor Agasa whined.
"You're hopeless." Haibara relented.
"Could you withdraw cash for me like you always do?" Professor Agasa requested, handing over his cash card.
At the ATM afterwards...
"What's the matter, ojii-san?" Conan spotted Mouri at the malfunctioning ATM machine.
"I'm not sure what happened, but when I tried to make a withdrawal, the machine suddenly stopped working." Mouri replied. "The machine ate my card and won't give it back."
"Ojii-san, have you forgotten?" Conan deathpanned. "Several years ago, in just three hours, 1.8 billion yen was withdrawn from ATMs all over Japan. It was because a South African bank was hacked."
"I remember that case." Fumio recalled. "Kaa-san worked overtime for three weeks; the stolen personal information was used to create fake bank cards. And the incident occurred when those counterfeit cards were used, so maybe..."
"Has my personal information been stolen too?" Mouri realized.
"With the skills of an international hacker, apparently, it is possible to hack into a security camera system and observe you from overseas." Conan supplied.
"What happened to that international hacker?" Mitsuhiko asked.
"The latest update from kaa-san is that Interpol finally got involved and they are currently investigating the case." Fumio replied.
Just then, a man in a black suit entered the bank, pulled out a black bank card and withdrew money from the malfunctioning ATM.
"Haibara-san, you're not going to make a withdrawal?" Mitsuhiko asked.
"Haibara?" the black suited man whispered in shock, Conan reacting instinctively and placed himself in front of Haibara.
"That man's card..." Ayumi pointed. "It's black."
Outside...
"Wait!" Conan hurried out after the fleeing man.
"That man used a weird card with withdraw money." Ayumi determined.
"The international hacker will be captured." Mitsuhiko decided and he, Genta and Ayumi went after the black suited man.
"You guys..." Fumio moaned.
"This is both your faults for mentioning that in front of those kids." Haibara chided.
"For the time being, we'd better find that man." Fumio sighed. "I have a feeling this is a huge misunderstanding."
In the Toto bank branch...
"The international hacker disappeared." Ayumi informed when Conan and Fumio entered the bank.
"The bank closes at three." Mitsuhiko added. "It should already have been closed when the man arrived. What could have happened?"
"The international hacker!" Ayumi spotted the black-suited man exiting the bank.
On the streets...
"Haibara!" the rest of the Detective Boys rushed up to Haibara who had accidentally met up with the black-suited man.
"He's getting away." Genta stated, said black-suited man running off in the opposite direction.
"You guys, stay there." Conan instructed over the Detective Badge, the others having trailed the man to the back of a building. "Whatever you do, don't go in there."
In the building's backroom office...
"He's using some kind of software to compare photos of Haibara-san against security camera images." Mitsuhiko informed, having snuck in through the door.
"What are you doing here?" the black-suited man's colleague found Mitsuhiko by the afar door.
"A bank?" the frightened Mitsuhiko blinked when the lights turned on.
"This is the Toto Bank Beika Park Branch." Conan explained.
"And these gentlemen are bank employees." Fumio added. "To be more specific, they're the bank's technical staff."
"This is where we view security camera footage from the Toto Bank branch in Beika City." the black-suited security personnel added.
"The technical staff checks the footage here." the team leader stated.
"Why were you looking at images of Haibara-san on the monitors of this room?" Mitsuhiko asked.
"Probably because they noticed she was trying to use the Professor's card to make withdrawals." Conan reasoned.
"We were notified that a young girl was using Agasa-sama's card." the black-suited man confirmed. "We thought the girl and Agasa-sama might have committed or gotten involved in some crime. I jumped to conclusions."
"So, that's why you took Haibara-san's photos run facial recognition here." Fumio mused. "Now that I think about it, you used a black card to withdraw money. Is that card used to examine a faulty ATM where an error occurred and then the information is disseminated to the other branches?"
"You sure are knowledgeable." the two bank employees were surprised.
"The bank kaa-san used in America uses a similar system." Fumio answered.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.