Moonlight Magician

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Haibara eyed the thief standing before her, an amused look lingering on her face.

"You want me to tell you what the link is between the corpse-magnet and Kudo-san?"

"C-corpse-? I mean, yes", KID said, valiantly ignoring the smirk spreading itself across the child's face. And why was she wearing a lab coat?

"No can do", she said, turning towards the computer she was sat at. "Christie guessed you would do this, and swore me to secrecy."

KID looked around the room in frustration and noticed what looked like a white egg covered in blue polka-dots resting on the computer desk. One of Shinichi's bombs. An idea tap danced in his mind.

"If I gave you one of my gadgets, would you cooperate with me?", he asked.

Haibara turned back and smirked again. "That depends on what you've got."

KID reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a small toy soldier. He tossed it to the mini scientist, saying, "If you pull the head off, it explodes within five seconds."

Haibara's eyes lit up. A timed grenade! "What do you want to know?"

"You said Christie got poisoned. Is Shinichi suffering from the same poison Christie was?"

"Not anymore. I cured her."

"Which one?"

"Both of them."

"Who poisoned them?"

Haibara hesitated. Should she tell him about the Black Organisation? What if he got killed?

But, it wasn't as if she actually cared what happened to him.

"The Black Organisation", Haibara answered, deciding to compromise- tell him of their existence without giving anything away about them. "Shinichi caught them in the act of blackmail."

KID frowned, although it was impossible to tell. "Then why did they poison Christie?"

"Because she caught them in the act of blackmail", Haibara replied, looking at him as if he were an idiot.

KID paused, then rallied. "Why did Shinichi disappear for so long?"

"She was hiding from the organisation. She still is."

"And I'm guessing that's what Christie is doing too, right?", KID sighed. The ridiculous truth was bearing down on him with the force of a wrecking ball, getting harder to ignore with each passing second.

"That's right."

KID looked at the miniscule scientist and took a deep breath as he prepared to voice his final question. "Is Christie really Shinichi?"

Haibara's eyes were very clear, and they pierced right through KID as she looked up into his face. "What do you think?"

===

Shinichi breathed in cool air as she looked up at the stars. She was on the roof of the mansion housing KID's next objective. On one side of her was a dark sky, glittering with tiny pinpricks of light. On her other side, the sky was awash with red, gold, and pink as the sun slowly sank behind faraway buildings.

She felt worried. That morning, she had awoken to find a message flashing across the screen of her laptop, which had been resting on the desk. A message from Vermouth, containing information that Snake would be making an attempt on KID's life that night.

She and Pandora had talked it over and come up with what loosely might be called a plan, but there was no guarantee that there would be no fatalities that night. She had tried her utmost to cancel the heist, and had been met with opposition on all sides.