Chapter 31: Tip of the Iceberg
In which I proceed to butcher neuro science.
I don't think there are any neurologists reading this, but if there are... please be gentle.
After three seconds of staring that felt like an eternity, Shinichi shook himself out of the deer-in-the-headlights state he was in.
"Where are you going?"
The question came out in stereo, both Shinichis reacting to the other's presence identically in a way that made him feel sick. Shinichi closed his eyes and took a deep breath through gritted teeth before motioning for Not-Shinichi to speak first.
"… Haibara was just here," said the clone carefully. "She said she didn't want to wait any longer to run some sort of test." Shinichi thought back to her undisclosed discovery and nodded.
"I need to ask Agasa-hakase if he can modify an existing program," he admitted slowly. "We've come to a bit of a block."
They hesitated a few moments longer before stiffly and silently putting their shoes on and walking next door. Haibara was already waiting impatiently inside. She gave Shinichi a curious look, but said nothing, opting instead to whisk the clone away to the lab. Shinichi went in search of the professor.
The older man listened aptly to Shinichi's explanation: the limits of the software, and the request posited to him. He stroked his mustache thoughtfully.
"Hmm… Well, it's certainly not impossible…" he mused, studying the ceiling. Shinichi perked up at the admission. "Give me a couple of hours first—I'll need to check the program's code directly in order to determine the best course of action."
To say Shinichi was elated was a gross understatement. If the professor could pull this off, it would make things so much easier.
We could do searches in real time, he thought giddily, his mood from earlier turning so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. He bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet as he waited for Agasa to collect a few things, and then they were out the door. Shinichi tore into his house and flew up the stairs, at the same time lamenting how slowly his neighbor moved. His entrance into his room startled Heiji so badly he nearly fell out of his chair.
"What the—?! Kudo?!" He looked around anxiously. "Did somethin' happen?"
"Agasa-hakase's coming to check the traffic software code," he said breathlessly as he moved to push the bigger teen out of the computer chair. Heiji stood up quickly.
"Alright, alright—quit shovin' me." He adjusted his shirt as Agasa finally made it upstairs, wheezing at trying to keep up with Shinichi. The man sent a withering glare their way as he caught his breath before walking over.
He sat down in the chair, and both detectives immediately leaned in with anxious anticipation. Agasa sighed.
"A little elbow room would be nice, you know," he said offhandedly. Heiji immediately backed up, but Shinichi stayed glued to his spot. "I'll see what I can do, but you can't rush me."
The teens agreed, and Heiji let out a big yawn. He glanced at Shinichi before stalking over to the bed and commandeering it for a nap. Shinichi ignored him. He watched raptly as the professor got to work, filing away everything the man did for later. He only stopped when Agasa shooed him away, saying he couldn't concentrate.
He took a deep breath to ground himself, then willed himself to leave the room. He didn't go very far, choosing instead to make laps around the hallway. He did that for an entire hour before being stopped in his tracks near the landing.
Not-Shinichi was staring at him, hand raised as if to catch his attention. Shinichi crossed his arms.
"I take it Haibara's finished?" A nod. "Any ideas on what the conclusion is?"
"… Not yet. She said she'd call you when she's done analyzing."
"And?" he prompted when the clone showed no signs of going away. "Is there something you need?"
"Your notes mention recording a hypnosis session," he said quietly. His already pallid face grew paler as he thought about what was documented. "I'd like to listen to it directly." Shinichi pressed his lips into a thin line as he remembered the session. He nodded.
"Give me a minute—I'll meet you in the library."
Not-Shinichi went back downstairs with a short nod as Shinichi went back to his room to retrieve his phone. He wasn't entirely sure why he kept a copy there, and he couldn't wait for the day he deleted it; nonetheless, since it was already on the device, that was the quickest method to share its contents with his double.
As he unplugged his phone, he checked the battery, just in case, and nodded in satisfaction. He glanced around the room—Agasa was clacking away at the keyboard, and Heiji was still passed out on the bed. He left the room before he could convince himself to stay and bother the professor.
He set off downstairs once more, mentally preparing himself to face his clone again, with a recording of Ran in tow.
XxX
After basically reliving Ran's hypnosis freak out, Shinichi sat tensely on the floor next to his dad's desk, waiting for Not-Him to comment. The silence dragged on for several minutes while the clone processed what he'd heard.
"That…" he started, voice cracking. "That was… concerning, to say the least…" He cleared his throat. "And your notes say no children were reported among the kidnapped…"
"Strange, isn't it?" asked Shinichi. "But they're also apparently getting samples from elsewhere—like the hospital, if I'm right."
"I assume you haven't looked into that aspect, since it's not written here," came the reply, accompanied by the sound of papers shuffling. Shinichi pressed his forehead into his knees as he took a deep, steadying breath.
"That's right—since it's new information, and I'm still trying to figure out how to acquire confirmation."
There was a tired sounding, contemplative hum from the clone, followed by tapping. Then came the sound of Ran talking about the children. Another tap, and the audio stopped. More tapping, Ran talking about waiting for her turn. Shinichi stared at the floor between his knees as his copy repeated those two sound clips a few times.
"… She didn't mention the children here," he said after replaying the first timestamp. Shinichi lifted his head.
"What?"
"If there were children with her, why didn't she mention it while talking about waiting for her turn?" Shinichi blinked a few times as the revelation sunk in. "It's Ran, after all. Even under hypnosis, they would have been the first thing she'd remember."
Very slowly, Shinichi stood up and turned around. He gripped the edge of the desktop to steady himself as his mind whipped into action.
They'd been so desperate for information at the time that between the hypnosis working and Ran's subsequent collapse, it hadn't even crossed his mind.
"So who is she talking about?" he said slowly, frowning down at his white-knuckled grip on the desk. "They had my DNA, but they didn't kidnap me—that suggests they might not take children…" He shook his head. "But that—that doesn't make sense. Why take DNA from someone you're not going to kidnap? Why use DNA from someone you didn't kidnap?"
I'm missing something big, he thought, fear creeping into his chest and squeezing his heart. Something crucial.
It wasn't just kidnappings they had to worry about now. He already knew that, but the implications that brought was something he hadn't considered. How could one possibly track the discrete theft of DNA? Did they only take DNA from children, or did they take from adults as well?
And none of that train of thought explained why she didn't mention the children right away, anyway.
"Let's assume," said the clone slowly, hand gently pressing on the back of his head, "that they don't kidnap children." Shinichi opened his mouth to protest, but Not-Shinichi held up his free hand to stop him. "I'm talking hypotheticals here—we can't prove one way or the other, so we might as well try theorizing both routes."
Shinichi nodded begrudgingly. He had a point, and they couldn't afford to waste time arguing about it.
"Following that line of reasoning," he continued, wincing as he rubbed at the tender wound, "that means Ran couldn't have met any children during the time she was 'waiting', right? Otherwise, she'd have mentioned something."
"Right. I'd thought that, too," said Shinichi. He mussed his hair in frustration. "She could have met the children after her turn came up, but—"
"But then they'd have known something was wrong," Not-Shinichi finished. "So she didn't meet them before, and she couldn't have met them after."
The two Shinichis stared at each other, both faces identically confused.
"… So where did she meet them…?"
"Setting that aside for the moment," the clone began with a frown, "was she actually underground?"
"What?"
"In the recording—Haibara asked if she was underground, but she never actually said she was."
That's right, thought Shinichi. She only repeated the word like she was remembering something else.
"… And she only mentioned the children after that…" he finished. He scratched his head. "But before Haibara's question, she said she was somewhere cold and dark."
"That's true, but it makes more sense for that to have been in a facility somewhere," Not-Shinichi pointed out. "It could have been anything from a basement to something like a morgue or a dungeon. Or it may have even been surface level, and they just happened to keep all of their captives in cold, dark rooms. The point is that she didn't remember any children before Haibara's leading question." He winced before finally taking his hand away from the head injury. "The real question is 'what exactly did she remember?'"
Both Shinichis restlessly drummed their fingers on the desk, wracking their brains for some kind of answer. The clone winced again, hand going back to the head wound, catching Shinichi's attention. He watched his double curse silently at the persisting pain, and a horrid thought came to mind. His eyes narrowed as the thought took form, and he finally spoke, hoping desperately to be wrong.
"Y-you," he said, voice tight as he reigned in the emotions running rampant. Not-Shinichi's gaze snapped to him. "You said the last thing you remembered was being rushed to the emergency room after getting shot?"
"… That's right…" came the confused reply. "And you said that happened months ago." Shinichi waved his hand dismissively.
"Never mind about when that happened—what's important is where it happened."
"You remember that just as well as I do," snapped the clone. "That was in that cave-system with the shogi riddle with…" He stopped, eyes growing wide as saucers. "… with… the children…"
Not-Shinichi's face drained of color as fear crept over it. Shinichi felt sick all over again.
"Y-you don't think…?"
"It would make much more sense," said Shinichi quietly. His pulse roared in his ears as he thought back to the hypnosis session. Ran had suffered some sort of fit and then collapsed immediately after mentioning the children.
The other Shinichi grunted in pain and clutched his head.
"S-s-shit!" he gasped, doubling over so he could press his forehead into the desk. "Th-this is insane!"
Shinichi took a step back, eyes roving over the clone. The behavior he exhibited wasn't dissimilar to Ran's fit, but… A closer look revealed the clone's hands were focused near the wound on his head. Since he'd already shown signs that frustration aggravated the fracture, this pain was inevitable. Because he was technically 'Shinichi,' he couldn't just sit back and do nothing when something urgent was happening. And the amount of frustration this particular case brought with it was nothing short of monumental.
"Things have been insane since Tropical Land," he said with a sigh as he gathered up all of the case papers strewn across the desk. "I told you to take care of that body—at least wait for the fracture to heal some before you start overworking." He straightened the papers. "I'll be taking these with me so this doesn't happen again." Not-Him glared at him from his hunched over position.
"… Fine," he ground out. Shinichi merely nodded and brought the files upstairs to his room.
He felt numb. This new revelation should have left him in a panic, feeling sick, angry, something. He felt nothing, not even disgust with himself for feeling nothing. He should have felt concerned at that, he knew, but his mind was just… blank.
"Shinichi? Is something wrong?" asked Agasa when Shinichi reentered the room, files in hand. He cast a worried glance at the small teen. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."
Shinichi, still feeling detached, pondered that. If he looked that bad, then he must feel something right? He put the papers away.
"Shinichi?"
"… I need to talk to Haibara," he said, voice sounding hollow in his hears. "Keep working—I'll be right back."
"Shinichi? Wait, Shinichi!"
But he was already out the door.
Despite barging into the lab unannounced, Haibara wasn't at all startled. She didn't even look up from her computer.
"I'm not finished yet," she said in a weary voice.
"It's not about that," he said, then stopped to consider. "Well, it's sort of about that; I need to tell you something."
The explanation of the theory was short and succinct. Haibara listened with a grave expression, but didn't appear too surprised.
"That aligns with my current hypothesis," she said, rubbing her temples. "It won't be concrete proof, but once I'm done analyzing the brain scans, it should clear up a few things. If I'm right, anyway." Something squeezed Shinichi's chest, and he couldn't help asking a question.
"Do you think Ran's still in there?"
Haibara studied him for a few moments, pondering the question before giving him a reply that left him breathless.
"I'm ninety-nine percent sure she is."
XxX
Haibara took a full extra day to examine and reexamine those scans, leaving an anxiously hopeful Shinichi to pace sleeplessly around his house for hours. He spotted Not-Shinichi a few times as he paced, usually in the library, staring listlessly at the bare desk in the room.
Shinichi took some time to explain to Heiji and Agasa what he'd discovered, much to everyone's horror and frustration. They couldn't do anything about it, after all.
While Haibara worked, Agasa successfully modified the traffic program, though Shinichi was too distracted to fully appreciate it. In his stead, Heiji went back to work with the new addition. Whether or not he had any success, he would inevitably gloat to Shinichi about it once his attention was no longer split.
Both he and Haibara missed another day of school, much to the dismay of the Detective Boys. Agasa told Shinichi he'd intercepted them before they could demand entry, but that at least one of the shrunken teens needed to make an appearance at school the next day since neither of them were ill. Shinichi half-heartedly agreed, even if he thought maintaining his cover at this point was meaningless unless Ran was present. Not that he'd ever admit that out loud, of course.
Haibara called everyone over the next evening, to finally share what she discovered. Shinichi, Not-Shinichi, Heiji, and Agasa all stared at the little scientist, nervous and impatient, as she thumbed through a manila folder, preparing to speak.
"I want to preface this by saying I'm still missing a few pieces of the puzzle," she warned, glaring at Shinichi in particular as if daring him to complain. "But I've got enough to go on to at least make some educated guesses regarding… recent events." She led them to the living room table, gesturing for everyone to sit while she pulled three papers from the folder. She placed one on the table for them to see.
"This is a scan depicting Kudo-kun's brain." Before anyone could ask, she added, "The original Kudo-kun, that is."
Despite themselves, everyone leaned forward to see what looked to be a pretty standard brain scan. Nothing was out of the ordinary, no abnormalities. This was to be expected, but there was something novel about seeing it, since the technology wasn't readily available outside of hospitals.
"And this," she said, placing a second paper down, "is the brain scan I took of the other Kudo-kun." Everyone leaned in again.
Everything looked more or less the same, with a slight variation in shape since Shinichi's head was currently the size and shape of a child's. The only other exception were two small dark spots on the right side of the brain—something that was easily dismissed at a glance due to the nature of how brain activity shows up in scans. But Shinichi's frown grew as he studied those spots, attempting to recall what he knew about brain anatomy. As if she was saving him the effort, Haibara went on speaking.
"You'll notice those dark spots are located in the hippocampus and the lentiform nucleus—two parts of the brain responsible for memory, among other things." She stared at the scan silently for a few moments, as if picking her next words carefully. "At first glance," she began, finally breaking the silence, "it looks to be nothing more than brain activity." Everyone nodded or hummed in agreement. "What you're actually seeing, though," she continued, "is the complete lack of activity."
"Complete lack of—what? In the memory?" asked Agasa, his own troubled frown growing. "I don't—"
"It'll be easier to understand in a minute," she said with a raised hand. Everyone waited as she put a final paper down next to the other two. "This is what I got from Ran-san shortly after her return."
This scan was completely different from the first two, so it took a few seconds before Shinichi processed what he was seeing. Since Ran was a different person, all of the activity showed up drastically different to Shinichi—this made sense. That's how it was supposed to be. He scanned the image for a few more moments before noticing two more dark spots located on the left side of the brain, but otherwise in the exact same spots as the clone's: the hippocampus and the lentiform nucleus.
"… They're mirrored," murmured Not-Shinichi.
"They are," Haibara affirmed quietly. "I'm just hypothesizing here, but I'm mostly certain those dark spots represent you and Ran-san."
"How?" asked Heiji with a frustrated scoff. "This—how's this even possible?!"
"It shouldn't be possible," snapped Haibara. "It goes against everything I know as a scientist, even if I don't specialize in neurology. I don't think even a neurologist would believe it." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "And like I said—this is nothing more than a hypothesis. Worse than a hypothesis, actually, since I have no way to test it. It's only a theory."
"And the hypnosis session?" asked Shinichi. Everyone stilled, waiting for Haibara's input. Heiji had been especially curious since Shinichi told him about it, so he was practically buzzing with impatience to hear some sort of confirmation on the matter. Haibara sighed.
"Again, it's nothing conclusive, but I do think your theory is correct there." She stared down at the brain scans, tapping the one of Ran thoughtfully. "As it usually goes with hypnosis, while she was under, her mind was open to most stimuli and suggestions. Asking her about something that she herself didn't experience but that you did experience—in this case, being underground—we must have brushed up against the other Kudo-kun's consciousness."
Shinichi closed his eyes and forced his breathing to come out steadily. It stung. Not the inconclusiveness, but the sheer amount of sense it made hurt in a way he didn't know how to describe. He didn't need the proof to be completely certain that this was the case, and it hurt. A glance at the other Shinichi revealed he was experiencing a similar state of mind, if not identical.
"… So… is this fixable?" asked Heiji, awkwardly trying to break the silence.
"… Probably…" Her reply was hesitant, unsure. Which meant she thought it was fixable, but didn't have a clue where to start.
Which meant it would take an indeterminate amount of time.
"Does this at least help with figuring out the DNA aspect of this case?" asked Shinichi, trying not to dwell too much on how long Ran would continue to be 'gone.'
"No," she said, much more confident in this answer. "Based on what limited information I have, I'm at least certain that the physical change was a separate procedure from the neurological one."
"I'd say that at least it's progress, but since that wasn't originally an issue we thought we had, I think we're actually worse off than before," said Shinichi quietly. Haibara scoffed.
"Maybe it looks that way to you," she snapped, "and maybe I do have even more work to do, but it does help me eliminate some of my original theories." She put the scans back in the folder and stood up. "You leave this part to me and just focus on your job: locating the people who made this whole mess in the first place." She left the room with a finality that had no room for argument.
Agasa chuckled nervously and absently patted Shinichi's shoulder before following Haibara to offer his assistance. Heiji glanced warily between the two Shinichis, neither of which elected to move, and decided it was probably safer to leave them alone. He stretched and then left, throwing out a comment about continuing to monitor the traffic cams. Neither Shinichi responded, but he seemed to have expected that.
Shinichi was alone with his clone. They were silent for a few minutes, digesting the new information, before Shinichi spoke up.
"Looks like I'm stuck with you for the foreseeable future." He'd meant to sound accusatory, but only managed to convey resignation.
"Looks like it," said Not-Shinichi, sounding similarly defeated, and something else that was distinctly bitter.
Shinichi turned to study his clone for a few moments. He was pallid—much more so than he'd been earlier, which was understandable given the circumstances. The pallor accentuated the dark circles hanging from glassy eyes that held a hollow gaze which matched the feeling in Shinichi's chest.
Unable to think of any way to organically interact with the clone, Shinichi did what he did best: shove his emotions aside in favor of cold, hard, reliable logic. With his 'detective mode' functioning at full capacity, he opened his mouth and asked,
"So, how would you go about breaking into a hospital's filing system?"