DCMK: Heavy Silences (6/10)

[what_we_dream]

Title: Heavy Silences (6/10)
Series: Magic Kaitou/Detective Conan
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Follows Slip and Fall/Pride Goeth Before.

I've been using Icka! M. Chif's information pages (1412, Ahou Calling) as quick fact-finding resources instead of trolling through hundreds of chapters for one detail. Thought I should mention and credit those great pages.

Docomo, AU and SoftBank are Japan's three main cell phone companies. However, I fudged the details about GPS tracking; I have no idea whether any of the three offer it, or if theirs works in this way. ^^

Summary: "We would like Kid delivered by the 24th. For every day you're late, one bright face vanishes from the world." Children kidnapped, Nakamori has only one place to turn for help. Kaitou Kid.

Although Kid has never been inside the Kudou house, he's surveyed it from the outside while investigating his new opponent, and its grandeur doesn't surprise him. Nor does the old-fashioned western nature of its furnishings. He is also not surprised when the computer Conan brings him to is sitting on a heavy oaken desk covered with a leather blotter, sitting on a wine-red carpet with an elaborate floral border. He peeks through the adjacent doorway and smiles to find his suspicions confirmed; the study does indeed border on a library filled with dusty, hardcover books, complete with balcony and ladder on rails. How predictable.

The computer's pretty good, but a few years out of date; it must have been at least a year old when Kudou had his accident. With the detective's parents abroad – and what's up with that? – there's been no one here to keep the house's technology up to date. Or the cleaning, for that matter.

Conan establishes himself in the stiff leather chair – another predictability; the house is one big cliché, par for the course of a mystery writer and an actress's home, he supposes – behind the desk and boots up the computer. Kid filches the files on Sawara-san and Nozomi-kun from the pile and flips forward to the pictures. Reads their personalities, their traits, their voices, from the lines of their faces and their poses.

Meanwhile, the boy – and even knowing the truth about him doesn't make it much easier to know how to think of him, other than as dangerous – has the internet up and running, is scrolling through the sites of the cell phone carriers.

"Docomo and Softbank offer tracking, AU doesn't. That's a 2 in 3 chance, assuming their phones were kept."

"Assuming the kid's even got one." The file says nothing about it; there's no reason the investigating officer would have asked. It's not uncommon for middle schoolers to have them these days, and Yamamoto could probably afford it, but there are plenty of other factors to take into consideration and he doesn't know which way the man would lean on any of them. There's no way to find out without calling, and no way to do that without betraying the fact that the Squad called in outside help of some kind, since he can't bet on Yamamoto's phone not being tapped, and he can't call in as Nakamori from Kudou's phone when they're certainly tapping the Inspector's.

It was irritating before, but the investigation on the Squad is becoming goddamn suffocating. He doesn't have the time or the energy to spare planning his way through the thick web of tangles and snares created by the Superintendant's crusade. Every time he seems to be making some headway the investigation is there to block it off, kicking his legs out from under him and sending him tumbling back the steep hill he's climbing. Why the hell did the man decide to crack down now of all times?

Teeth grinding of their own will, he considers. He's decent with computers, good enough to break into password protected files, but he doubts he could hack into company records – certainly couldn't do it here, within the time limit. Jii-san's no help either; the old man embraces technology, but he's only worked up to the steam-age so far. Calling the wrong company as a client, or even a client's relative, would be fatal if they need to call back chasing down the second phone – they need to know who the phones are registered with. "I suppose," he says at last, "that I could go track down the families. This would be much easier if we could just call them," he adds, frustration beginning to boil over.

"We don't have the time to be trekking back and forth between here and Tokyo," comes the boy's answer. "If we go, we'll be stuck there, and I doubt you'd want me in your secret lair."

Kid bridles at that behind the poker face, caught between irritation at the statement of facts he's well aware of, and measuring just how far he would be willing to go if it comes down to it. It seems stupid to flinch at giving the detective a clue – huge though it would be – to his identity when he's ready to risk his life for this cause.

If it comes down to it: how many times has he thought that already? If it comes down to it he'll throw away Nakamori's career, the Squad's careers, his identity, his life. With a hint of bitterness he can't quite hide, he spits out, "You have a better plan?"

"Other than the families, we have only one way to the information: the cops."

"Which we've already ruled out," points out Kid in a brittle voice.

"We've ruled out the cops we know. But we have another contact with close ties to the police. You're wearing his clothes."

Kid blinks, looks down at the jacket and rumpled shirt he doesn't remember putting on. Shakes himself. Wake up, dammit!

"Hattori'll be in school by now, though," continues Conan thoughtfully without noticing the thief's silence.

"That's not a problem," says Kid grimly. "You know the name?

"Sure. Kaihou High School."

"Get the number." He nods at the computer, wracking his brain for information, winkling it out of corners and crevasses. Hattori Heiji, son of Hattori Heizo, Osaka's Police Director-General. He's seen the man once, during his run at the Memory Egg. Once was enough.

"Got it," says Conan, window showing a list of Osaka high schools. In the middle is Kaihou, beside it the number for the office and fax line.

Kid picks up the phone, a sleekly streamlined black cordless affair, and dials the number. Waits.

"Good morning, Kaihou High School staff room." Apart from a hint of Osaka-ben, it might have been the voice which answered at Conan's school. It suddenly strikes Kid as ridiculous that he's phoning around as everyone's father, like a damn party prank, but now's not the time for levity. Besides, Hattori Heizo has probably never felt any.

"This is Hattori Heizo." Deep and resonate, scraping the bottom of his range. He's forced to add in a hint of smoky gruffness to hide the unevenness. "There's been a minor family problem. Could you ask Heiji to turn on his cell phone and come home?" He almost adds immediately, but it's sure the teacher will do so anyway, and he doesn't need to worry the boy any more than he will have already.

"Of course, Hattori-san."

"Thank you." He hangs up, looks to Conan. The kid seems to be on the point of saying something, but thinks the better of it. He slips out of the chair and hurries out of the study instead, without a word. Kid sighs, slumps, resting tense muscles. But the quiet footsteps return almost immediately, cutting his break short. In the detective's hands is his cell phone, fire engine red with a soccer ball key chain. It's amazing how he can be so good at playing the child in some respects, and in others so completely incompetent.

The boy makes two tries, redirected to Hattori's mail box, before he connects. The phone's answered on the first ring. "Hello?"

"It's Kudou. Listen." The boy cuts through Hattori's attempts at putting him off. "I made the call to the staff room."

There's a beat of silence. Then a low question.

With the immediate urgency of the situation relaxed, Conan settles into the chair, head not even level with the top of the back rest. Now, having caught Hattori's attention, he's forced to explain. Any other day, Kid would be smiling like a cat.

"Well, actually, it wasn't me. It was Kid."

A louder question.

"He's here. With me, in my house." A squawk. "No, of course he's not holding me hostage. But… Listen, Hattori, I need a favour." The boy pauses, clearly weighing his options like sand between his fingers. Trying to decide how much to tell, how much to let slip away. There's no need for secrecy between the two of them, no possible reason not to tell him everything. Except to protect the Osakan boy, to give him the safety of secrecy from this shadowy Organization in their current hasty unprepared pursuit.

It tells him just how worried about this the detective is, even if he hasn't voiced any concerns for his own safety. Kid would feel a qualm – should feel a qualm – about this emotional blackmail, about introducing the boy into a case he couldn't refuse with his morals, if only there weren't lives at stake. Aoko's life at stake.

"There's been some kidnappings," the kid says at last. "Police officers' children. And the ransom is Kid."

A long silence.

"We might be able to track the kids through their phones – the kidnappers made the ransom call on one of their victims' phones, so there might be others. We have two victims old enough to have phones, but we need to know whether they do for sure, and what company they're with."

A quiet hissing.

"That's right. Got a pencil? I'll give you their names." He does so, checking the kanji by meaning and adding in addresses. "There's another complication," he tacks on when finished. Kid doesn't catch the words, but the Osakan's incredulous tone is unmistakable. "If at all possible, this needs to be done without the Tokyo police finding out about it. There's an investigation in Section Two for misconduct. We don't want anyone to know they went outside for help."

To Kaitou Kid for help.

There's a grudging reply, and then another stronger one.

"No," says Conan immediately. "No, I've got everything covered. Besides, you wouldn't get here long enough before the deadline to be any help." An all-out lie; Hattori could be here by noon. Kid's stomach tightens. "I've got it handled. But I need that information – as soon as possible." A good distraction. It seems to take. The Osakan agrees, and hangs up.

The detective puts the phone down on the desk, sighs. Then turns to Kid, eyes questioning. "What now?"

"Now," says Kid, glancing down at his rumpled shirt, "I take a shower. And you lend me some clothes."

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There's something deeply personal about untidied bathrooms, and Kudou's is no different. Maybe it's the presence of mirrors and tiles which have seen their masters or mistresses naked so often that the secrets have sunk in and taken on a kind of presence of their own, almost as tangible as the towel rack or bath stool. Maybe it's just the presence of aspects of a person's life never seen by anyone except intimate friends, family, lovers: the half-used bar of soap, the dark hairs standing out like cracks against the white enamel of the fixtures, the cabinet filled with mysteries even Kid can't guess at.

Maybe the exhaustion's starting to get to him.

He toys with not locking the door as some kind of symbolic show of trust, but decides screw that – if he had no problem rummaging through the detective's cupboards, the kid's sure not going to have any with digging through his bag. Or trying to sneak a glance at his face. Active pursuit is out of the question, but after that the unspoken truce between them is on shaky ground.

Door thus firmly locked behind him, he drops his pack and Kudou's clothes on the floor next to it and makes a quick investigation of the cupboard under the sink and the medicine cabinet, more out of habit than real curiosity. Turns up only cleaning products and spare toiletries under the sink and current toiletries and a bottle of aspirin above. He snorts, disgusted with the detective's straight-laced life.

The mirror shows him that his face is wearing well, considering the haste with which he slapped it on, but he's already getting tired of its plain curves. Besides, he didn't take as much care as usual, and it's been itching at the edges. He peels it off gladly, folding it up and tossing it towards his bag; it lands like a jellyfish on the cold floor with a wet glooping sound.

In the spotty mirror, Kaito Kuroba's face is grey and worn, and pocked around the edges with mask powder and affixing glue. His dark eyes stare back at him, uncertain, worried. The eyes of a trapped animal, fearing the discovery that will come with morning.

He runs a hand through the drooping fields of his hair, nails digging furrows into his scalp. The cold fear that haunted his flight from Tokyo – an hour with nothing to do but think, the longest hour he's spent in years – is seeping back into him like water between the rotting boards of an old ship's hull. He has nothing to distract himself with here, alone with only his thoughts and, worse, his imagination.

He knows the success of the bastards' plan relies on the decent treatment of the hostages, knows it with the certainty he has in the funding principles of math, chemistry, physics. But facts are dull, flat things, and easily overtaken and forgotten in the bright vividness of the pictures his imagination paints for him. No nightmare is as terrible as them, because they hold the unbreakable, undeniable power of potential truth. Aoko's screams ring in his ears as her clothes are ripped, the thick copper scent of her blood pooling on the floor fills his nose, the coldness of her skin under his shaking hands ices his own skin. A thousand horrific scenarios play themselves out in the theatre of his mind, each in the blink of an eye.

Kid is pulled back to the present by the sound of his own voice, a thin keening whine that reverberates like struck glass through the bathroom. He comes to himself leaning over the smooth curves of the sink, round edges grasped tight in both hands, eyes staring unseeing at the metal cross of the drain-block. Slowly he lifts his heavy head to look at himself in the mirror again.

He's white and trembling, and panting as if he just ran a marathon, mouth hanging open. He looks, in short, terrible. "Fuck," he hisses, grinds the palms of his hands into his eyes until stars burst behind his retinas. Stumbling over to the tub, he switches on the heat and turns the shower tap on full blast, spraying his sleeve with water. He hardly cares, shucking the clothes off viciously, snarling when he catches his feet in the pants legs. He pushes under the shower head before the water's fully heated, catches a jet of cold water straight in the face and sputters. But it's already heating, and soon it passes lukewarm into hot. Kid settles under the stream and turns, lets the water pour down over his back, drenching his thick hair and running over his tired shoulders.

It's less that the hot water washes away his fears than that it wakes him up, jerks him all the way out of the dusk of fatigue where fears have huge shadows and into the bright sunlight of full wakefulness. Here he controls his dread instead of the other way around. Here, he can think properly, with the speed he should have. Here, he can be himself.

Here, he has a chance of success again.

He gets out of the shower and gets dressed with steady hands.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The detective's typing away on the computer when he comes downstairs, hair slicked back flat against his scalp, face tweaked into a longer, flatter one than his own by use of moulding clay rather than a mask this time. The kid gives him one look and then goes back to work on the computer.

"What's up?" Kid swings around behind him to look at the monitor. There are two windows open, one for Docomo, the other for Softbank. Docomo's up on the screen now, current page a member's registration form.

"We've hit a snag," he says, filling out the form under the name of Yamamoto Nozomi. "To track the phone, you have to be either the owner or possibly a relative and have an account. We can fake the owner part, but the account's harder." He puts in another couple of lines and then, "How good are you at hacking?"

"You don't seriously expect me to answer that, do you?"

"I tried to create an account at both Softbank and Docomo using Sawara-san's phone number; it's already taken. Softbank's got Nozomi-kun's as well, and I'm just checking with Docomo, but…" He finishes entering the information, presses enter. The page changes, and the red text says failure even before he's finished reading "number taken, please re-input information."

"I'm guessing," says Kid after a few seconds, "from the fact that you asked if I could hack that you can't." It's not surprising; the boy's got no way to remain current scene without a computer, and nothing changes as fast as the net.

"No. I know someone who can, although he won't like it." Conan sighs, then picks up the phone. Dials a number from memory. "Ah, Professor? It's me. I need you to do something for me… yeah, it's about that. I'll need the names and passwords for one or two internet phone accounts in a while… Yes… Yes, I know, but it's important. If I had the time, I'd get permission. It's complicated. Right. I'll call you with the names and companies as soon as I get them. Thanks." He puts the phone back in its cradle. "Well, that's that taken – " Before he can finish the phone is ringing again at an ear-piercing volume probably chosen to be audible outside the study's thick walls. They both stare at it for an instant before the detective snatches it up, almost standing on the chair to do so. "Hello?

There's a long irritated exposition from the other end, in what he can recognize as Hattori's expressive tones.

"But you got the information?"

Affront.

"Good. And? Sawara-san's with AU – damn, you're sure? How about Yamamoto Nozomi? Docomo?" He sighs, and Kid does as well. There's still a chance. He hadn't realised how much he was blindly relying on this until he heard AU. "Thanks. That's great. Hopefully with this we'll be able to track them down. No, I'm managing fine. No – really. Thanks." He hangs up quickly, escaping the conversation in the quickest way possible. Either the Osakan Detective is exceedingly thirsty for cases, or he's something of a mother hen. Kid stores away the information with a smile. Grumbling to himself, the Detective calls through to the Professor and relays the information. Kid begins tidying up, putting the folders together and making a mental list of things to be done while he waits for the phone. The conversation only takes a minute, and when it's done Conan swivels around to face him.

"You'll call in as Officer Yamamoto?"

"Seems best. Got the number?" He has no idea what Yamamoto's wife is like, has never seen her. Of course, it's not like the phone company will know her either, but his sense of perfection rebels against that kind of falsification. The detective reads him the number and he punches it in, already slipping into Yamamoto's skin.

"Good morning, Docomo, GPS tracking desk."

"Good morning. This is Yamamoto Ashitomo. I would like you to turn on the tracking for my son Yamamoto Nozomi's phone; he went on a trip alone to Ibaraki-ken and got lost."

"I see, sir. Could I have his phone number and account password, please?"

"Sure." He takes the paper from the boy, reads off. "080-3829-2951. The password is exile, all small letters." Apparently the kid's a pop fan. There's a minute while the receptionist puts in the information, a clicking of keys. Then,

"Alright, the GPS function has been engaged. To view it, log in to the website with your son's account and follow the tracking link. Do you need the URL?"

"No, it's alright. Thanks."

"Thank you, sir."

He hangs up, glancing at the detective, but the boy's already logging into the account. There is, of course, the possibility that the boy doesn't have his phone on him, or that it's broken or turned off or – any number of things. The scam's high, not much more than a gentle wave of adrenaline to begin with, wears away.

On the screen, Conan finishes logging in and follows the "tracking" link. A map shows up, much like any of the regular internet map functions. It takes several minutes to load, lines slowly drawing themselves in and then refocusing. It is clear early on that the city displayed is Tokyo, but the map is zoomed out much to far to make any sense of the location. The detective slides the bar up several notches, focusing the camera in too far too fast, screen freezing. It takes nearly a minute to re-orient itself, shakily re-establishing the picture. Kid's jaw gives a flare of pain, and he realises he's grinding his teeth again.

"Where's Yamamoto's house?" Conan's watching the screen, staring as intently as a dog watching a rabbit, waiting to chase.

Kid doesn't need to look at the file, has it memorized. "Kita-ku." One of the wards on the border of the city, far inland.

The picture, when it resolves, shows the cellphone's location as a little red dot. It's near the bay.

The detective lets his breath out in a thin hiss, pausing for a minute presumably in elation before focusing in closer to pick up on the location.

Now, Kid realises in a lightning-like flash, he needs to figure out how to get rid of the kid. It's not going to be easy. In fact, it's going to be damn hard. Unless he takes the easy way out… his hands slip into his pocket, fingering the different sized capsules there. Smoke, homemade tear gas, and lying snug between them, knock-out gas.

"I suppose you're wracking your brains trying to figure out how to ditch me," says the detective coolly, and swings around in the chair. His eyes are hard behind the glasses – slate-hard – and watchful.

Kid smirks, shrugs. Slips into the easy movements of a jester rather than the lithe ones of a predator, a distinction which is clear in his mind. He brushes a stray hair away from his eyes. "I'd say you're wronging me, but…"

"But I'm not." The kid's tone is flat and sharp, a razor stropped on harsh experience, on being looked down on by those who don't know.

Kid shrugs again, this time in smooth acquiescence. "Don't misunderstand. It's not you I'm protecting." Getting the kid to Tokyo, then explaining away his presence would be troublesome enough. But carrying someone around with him who the enemy might recognise on sight would be fatal. Fatal, to Aoko.

"Protecting lives comes before personal vendettas," the boy agrees, watching Kid's hands like any good sceptic.

"Yes," says Kid, smiling. "It does."

It's too bad for the detective that he's not just any good magician. A tip of his head is all it takes to dislodge the gas pellet from behind his ear. It cracks open on the wood floor beside the carpet and seeps into the air, silent as mist at dawn. Kid is already holding his breath. The boy's eyes widen infinitesimally, and then lose focus sharply and slide closed as he slumps down in the chair. Kid has the files in his bag and is out of the room before his lungs begin to ache. Out of the house itself before his air runs out.

He should probably feel a pang as he hurries out into the street to catch a bus to the station. But all he knows is an edgy, cold relief.

There is still hope.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's bizarre, but even under the makeup he feels far more naked than he ever has as Kid. Here, the line between the thief and Kuroba Kaito is thin indeed, and he's not used to having to run jobs under these circumstances. He's cased plenty of locations as Kaito, has done any amount of research as him, has even when no alternative presented itself run significant parts of a heist as the highschool student rather than the kaitou. The fact that he has no white silk on under his slack shirt and jeans should make no absolutely no difference. But somehow, it does. Because if he's not Kid, then he is by default Kuroba Kaito, and with Aoko's life on the line that's a dangerous place to be.

He picked up a street map of Outa-ku from the Beika Station information centre to study on the trip to Tokyo. He knows Tokyo perfectly from the sky but that gives him only a broad, blurry guide to the maze of streets and alleys that make up the crowded suburbs near the bay. The first thing he does upon unfolding the map is to pick out the phone's location, burned bright as a brand into his mind. The next is to plan his transportation backwards from the nearest station to Tokyo Station. A transfer and two long trips once he reaches the capital: it could have been worse, but it could also definitely be better.

Plan of attack steady in his mind, he sits back to memorize the neighbourhood.

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The neighbourhood turns out to be, as he knew it would, a slightly run-down lower-class area. The narrow streets are lined with badly-stained corrugated-steel roofed buildings – cheap stores and restaurants on the ground storey, compact dwellings upstairs – interspersed here and there with the entrance to a covered shopping arcade smelling of fish and miso, and squat apartment buildings in stucco and concrete utterly without style. Near enough to the piers to have the rough feel of a dock-side neighbourhood while far enough away to be residential rather than industrial. One of the neighbourhoods a city of any size creates simply by existing. Not hard, exactly, but with a slightly uneasiness. A sense of watchfulness. The kind of neighbourhood strange comings and goings in the night would be ignored in, on Kudou's favourite principle of safety in ignorance.

Kid's thoughts flash to the detective, slumped in his chair, and smiles grimly.

He didn't bother with anything troublesome or eye-catching in his current disguise: it's just an ordinary face which is not his, a little older, a little plainer. A crowd of little facts which together equal a lot.

But around here, he's just another teen on the cusp of adulthood out of school, out of work. Dyed hair and baggy pants would have given him a better chance of fitting in, but he's not in a mood to deal with yankee culture. Hands in his pockets, eyes downcast, he plays the purposeless, depressed teen, filing his days wandering aimlessly. No one pays him enough attention to notice his aimless wanderings are concentrated in one direction.

Although he could tell from the map it was a big building, the space alone – a fat rectangle – was depicted. He had guessed a factory or perhaps a warehouse.

It is, in fact, a school.

For a split second terror ices over his gut, as if someone's poured liquid nitrogen straight down his throat. He's made a mistake – he's tracked the wrong phone – he's remembered incorrectly – and he's wasted 3 hours. But then his brains kick in, and the ice thaws into nothing as quickly as it came.

The school is clearly abandoned. The front entrance is blocked by locked gates, a fact which alone is inconceivable on a school day, but beyond it the front entrance is also dark and empty. He can see chains looped around the door handles. Weeds are growing in cracks in the concrete, vines creeping over muddy planters. And, above all, the place is dead silent, as no school ever is.

Instead of approaching the dirty stucco walls of the fence, he turns a corner and heads for the nearest apartment building. There's a locked door to prevent entry by non-tenants, but that's no problem. He's climbing rust-stained stairs in less than a minute.

The building's only eight storeys, nine including the roof, but it's enough. He slips out into the cloudy afternoon and stoops down low. Crawls to the flat edge and peers over, lying on his stomach and ignoring the uneven roof digging into his chest like dozens tiny claws. Even if the men holding the kids are grunts, they're grunts in what must be an incredible strict organization and that requires cautious handling. Wind slicking over his flat hair, he pulls his monocle from his pocket and dials up the magnification.

There's no sign of anyone in the building; no lights or movement. He focuses instead on looking for signs of entrance, checks the chain-locked doors. And finds nothing.

Mouth slowly drying – what if he was wrong, did remember incorrectly? What if the signal or the map were incorrect? – he eases back from the edge and scrambles down the stairs and out into the street. Skirts the school once more, this time headed for the opposite side.

The new vantage point – the cracking roof of a slightly taller complex- shows the same scene: dark windows, tarnished glass. And, lying curled like a snake beside one of the students' entrances, a length of rusty chain.

Bingo.

Now all that's left is to round up Nakamori and the others. He hurries down to the street, backtracks to the last payphone he saw. Considers for a second, then, with bright eyes, picks up the phone.