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Somewhere beyond the industrial symphony of electric buzzes and mechanical whirring, Professor Agasa’s front door pushed open. A disgruntled-looking Conan Edogawa stepped through, his hands occupied by a half-empty cup of juice bearing the Poirot logo.
“Oh, Shinichi, it’s you,” Agasa called. “You haven’t come this way in a while, have you been busy?”
“Yeah… busy,” came the mumbled reply. Without stopping to see if they were alone, he made a casual beeline for the professor’s workbench. Agasa was already elbow-deep in his tool chest before the voice modulator and Detective Boys badge were offloaded into his lap.
“Another battery change?”
“Yeah,” Conan answered, in a voice that was distracted. Absentmindedly, he shifted the straw in his mouth from one cheek to the other and gave the cup a shake. “The modulator’s been acting up, too. Crackles a little when I talk to Ran over the phone, or so she says--”
“Isn’t that interesting.”
The voice came from behind them, from the direction of the lab. Haibara stood at the mouth of the stairs, mug in hand, tired eyes scanning Conan in particular. She regarded him from a distance with her cold, regal brand of judgment as he loudly sipped at what was left of his juice, apparently indifferent to her dagger stare.
“Have you heard?” she finally asked, retreating to the sofa. Her attention settled on the nearby TV, flashing through the daily news stream with the volume muted.
Now it was Conan’s turn to regard her. In quiet frustration, his straw flattened between his teeth. Damn girl was always so difficult to read. What was on her mind now?
“Heard what?” he returned, leaving the professor to join her. “Oh, about Ayumi?”
"You seem concerned," she scoffed, never taking her eyes off the screen. ‘Mark your calendars for the grand opening of Beika’s newest attraction!’ mouthed a man in a mascot suit.
“What’s that mean?" he frowned. "You know I am. The kids don't need to know when I'm worried, especially not n–”
“That’s cold,” she interrupted. “Sure they do. They need validation . Their friend is missing and they don't know if what they're feeling is what they're supposed to be feeling." She paused to drink from her mug. "You're supposed to be the one they look to as an example."
She took a moment to read his reaction– or lack thereof– then reached over for the remote. She saw the want to protest caught on his lips. "Anyway," she continued, before he could, "it's not like it really matters. Look."
The volume went up. The seemingly endless montage of police sweeping various corners of the city was briefly interrupted by a shot of Genta and Mitsuhiko appearing in the company of Detectives Takagi and Sato. Ayumi’s apartment loomed in the background, quartered off by two or three squad cars and a small crowd of onlookers.
At this, Conan flushed with secret pleasure, particularly amused by the number of officers who had apparently been dispatched for one, lousy brat. But he supposed it was just protocol for missing persons… 'The first forty-eight hours are the most crucial,' 'time waits for no-one,' blah blah blah. Idiots all the same, he thought, suppressing a smile.
“They’re all out there in full force," Haibara observed, waking him from his trance.
Conan furrowed his brow, glowering at her from the corner of his eye. She didn't say it, but he felt it: the unspoken, accusatory, “ Why aren't you?”
He waited a moment before speaking again.
“Haibara…" he grumbled, "is there a problem here?”
She finally turned her eyes on him with all the reprehension of a disapproving mother, and audibly exhaled out of her nose. “No,” she responded, suspiciously calm as the mug met her lips once more. Conan was cognizant of the fact that it had been empty since she had joined them. “No problem, Kudo-kun.”
Without another word, she was off the sofa and heading back to the basement stairs, where she began the slow descent back down into her lab, leaving him in a terse silence she hoped against hope would prompt him to consider his own mortality, for once.
When he thought she had moved out of earshot, the professor lifted his head from his work and stole a glance at his bewildered guest. He tried– without success– to hide a grimace. “Ai-kun’s just worried too, Shinichi,” he tried to explain. “You know why she can’t be out there with them, or else she would be.”
Conan snorted, finally setting down his own empty cup. “And I can?” he mumbled, turning back towards the TV.
The news stream had returned from commercials to the search for Ayumi, this time leading with a hasty attempt to interview one Inspector Megure. But if his short, disconnected answers were anything to go by, the Inspector was clearly frazzled, too frazzled to want to even deal with the media, and between questions Shiratori would sometimes come into frame to shoo the cameras away, only for the whole ordeal to repeat itself.
The chaos of it all managed to coax another smile to his face, this time successfully. He opened and closed his palm where he had clutched Ayumi in her final moments, mischief and ill-will dancing in his eyes.
They’ll never find her.
They’ll never find her, Haibara thought.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, when she was sure she was alone, and drew in a sharp breath. An uncomfortable tightness gripped her heart, made her blood run cold. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s only a hunch, she tried to convince herself. It’s… just a hunch.
Then why, she almost laughed, am I trembling?
In her stupor, the mug dropped to her feet. She didn’t bother to pick it up, instead feeling her way to her computer.
The monitor hummed to life as she settled into her chair, still shivering under the spell of her own premonitions. She unveiled her phone from under her coat, haphazardly dumping it on the nearest patch of desk not yet obstructed by notes.
She curled her fingers around the chassis of the keyboard and pulled. It resisted for a moment, but then unstuck rather suddenly, revealing a sticky note with a hastily-penciled phone number on it. No name, no notes– just the number, clearly written in a hurry. She peeled it away and, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder, quickly dialed it into her mobile.
It only rang once before she hung up.
Ha. What was she doing? What if she was wrong? Some mistakes couldn’t be walked back… this she knew better than anyone.
Her gaze drifted to a polaroid taped just aft of the computer switch. It was something a friendly bystander had offered to take on one of their first trips, a complete group photo with the sun in the sky, the city on the horizon, and not a murder case in sight.
In the gloom of her lab, Ayumi’s smile was like a beacon in the night. The others, too– so full of joy, of innocence, with no secrets to keep and a lifetime of adventure ahead of them.
With one of them gone, she felt the clawed hands of a grim future clenched around not only her throat, but theirs, too.
She dialed the number again.
…
…
Click.
“Yeah. This is Hattori Heiji.”