Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ Orbital Query ❯ Are You Receiving Me Clear? ( Chapter 2 )

     As the sun began to sink down and the afternoon became dusk, the five children parted ways to each make the trip home. However, as they separated, Haibara grabbed Conan's wrist and kept him behind.

     "You're coming with me." she told him, "When we get to Dr. Agasa's, call Mouri-san and tell her you'll be having dinner with us."

     "Huh?" Conan asked, perplexed, "Haibara, wha-"

     "I don't want to explain yet. It could be nothing at all, so I need to confirm something first. Otherwise both of us will worry without reason."

     With his curiosity peaked by her vagueness, and a bit of fear peaked by her urgency, Conan followed along without comment. He tried to think of what it was that had alarmed her so. If he had to guess, it had to do with the reason for her spit-take earlier in the day. She had dismissed it simply as some of her water going down wrong, but everyone else had the suspicion something else bothered her. Though nobody said anything as she clearly didn't wan to talk of it. Not an uncommon occurrence with Ai Haibara.

     Conan wondered what could have gone through the girl's mind at that moment. If it was something personal to her alone, trying to figure it out would likely be pointless. So Conan worked on the assumption that whatever it was that spooked Haibara was related to whatever they had been doing at the time. He mentally went step-by-step over everything that had been occurring immediately before.

     We finished tag, then we got water. I realized Ayumi had grown a bit. Then I went and got my own water and suddenly Haibara's sputtering and coughing...

     If her behavior had anything to do with what that Conan couldn't think of how...

     When the two arrived at Hiroshi Agasa's home, Haibara immediately made a beeline for Agasa's lab, asking Conan to stay put for a moment. Conan, still unsure of what was going on (and getting frustrating from not figuring it out) did as requested. In moments the two scientists, young and old, walked into the room, Conan didn't like the worried looks on both their faces.

     "Shinichi," Agasa said, "I need to see you for a second."

     "Hm? Sure."

     Conan got up from the couch he'd been sitting on and went into the lab with Agasa and Haibara.

     "Just what's going on here?" Conan asked, "Is something wrong?"

     "Very." Haibara replied. Before Conan could ask what was going on, Agasa had him stand with his back to the wall while he pulled out a black marker.

     "Not again?" Conan asked in annoyance.

     "Again?!" Haibara asked. She sounded alarmed.

     "Yeah, Ran does to me once a month..." Conan explained. If possible, Haibara's expression became more serious than it had just a moment ago.

     "Just what is going on?!" Conan asked as Agasa used a marker to put a line right above Conan's head.

     "Kudo-kun, would you say you've adjusted well to our current situation?" Haibara asked.

     "Well, I suppose I have..." he answered as Dr. Agasa grabbed a strand of the tape measure used often by tailors.

     "Enough so that you've grown used to having to climb or boost yourself up to get to objects out of reach without thinking much of it." Haibara continued.

     "I suppose it has become somewhat automatic..." Conan asked.

     "Would that include standing on your toes?"

     With those words, Conan understood. He had been on his toes getting a drink of water when Haibara had her reaction. Shortly after he had realized Ayumi no longer had to...

     "We haven't been growing, have we?!" It was Agasa who answered.

     "No. You haven't. Not so much as a millimeter in over a year, Shinichi..."

     "But, how is that possible?!"

     "APTX-4869." Haibara answered matter-of-factly, "The drug that reversed our growth has, it seems, also halted it."

     "And you're positive of this?!"

     "We are." Agasa answered, "You remember when you first shrank? I gave you a complete physical to make sure there weren't any other serious effects of that drug. I did the same for Ai-kun soon after she came."

     "And," Haibara continued, handing Conan some papers, "If you compare the Doctor's notes regarding our height to our size at this moment, you'll see there is no difference, whatsoever."

     Conan scanned the papers, Dr. Agasa's notes and records of his check-ups on both Conan and Haibara. He saw the measuring tape Agasa held against the wall at the line he had drawn. Reading it, the distance from the floor to that line was exactly what he saw on the paper regarding his height one year ago. He saw another line on the wall, slightly above his own, and knew that it marked Haibara's height. That height was also the same on both the wall and the paper.

     "How... how did this happen?! How did we not notice?!" Conan asked.

     "APTX-4869 was intended as an untraceable killer." Haibara explained, "Made so that any traces of it that linger after its ingestion by the human body would not be found. Those traces remain in our bodies, even now, Kudo-kun. It seems that, as a result of that, a side-effect of whatever fluke shrank us rather than killing us is preventing us from experiencing physical growth of any kind."

     "As to why you didn't notice," Agasa continued when Haibara finished, "It's simple, you're a seventeen-year-old in the body of a child."

     "I think I get it..." Conan answered, "Because we shrank down like we did, Haibara and I had to get used to being so much shorter than most everything else around us. I got so used to needing to boost myself up that it never occurred to me that I might not need to while I was still a kid."

     Indeed, thinking back, it was this fact that had kept Conan from realizing the reason for Haibara's sudden dismay at the park. Standing on his toes had become such a natural reflex for him at that fountain that it had never occurred to him that it might be a part of Haibara's anxiety until just now.

     "So, what now?" Conan asked.

     "I don't know what can be done..." Agasa told him.

     "Whatever happens, we should figure it out soon." Haibara said. Conan and Dr. Agasa looked to her.

     "The children around us grow just a little bit every day." she explained, "It's not a problem now. But sooner or later, someone will notice that we aren't growing with them. When that happens, suspicions will begin to develop. Kudo-kun, didn’t' t you say that Mouri-san measures you once a month?"

     Conan suddenly understood why Haibara was worried.. She was right. There was no way Ran didn't know about this. But if she did, why hadn't she said something again. Why had she, in fact, made a point of letting Conan think he had gotten taller? Was she suspicious of his identity again? How would he hide this one? He looked to Haibara and knew that many of the same questions were in her head as well. As if reading their thoughts, Agasa tried to reassure them.

     "Now let's not jump to conclusions. The fact is, we don't know if Ran-kun is suspicious of Shinichi because of this, or if she has some other reason for not saying anything."

     He was right. There were any number of reasons Ran would lie to him like that. If she wasn't suspicious, most likely she thought she was sparing Conan's feelings by not letting him know he was as short as he ever was. Conan let out a small sigh of relief.

     "Don't relax just yet." Haibara told him, "We don't know for sure what Mouri-san thinks one way or the other. Kudo-kun, you should make a point of finding out which it is and dealing with it."

     Conan nodded. She was right. But that still didn't solve their problem, what did they do about this new development?

     "For the moment," Agasa explained when Conan repeated this question, "I was thinking that I could add lifts to your shoes to make you look taller."

     "Doctor," Haibara asked, looking down at their feet, "Just how would that help us indoors?"

     Agasa blushed in embarrassment as he realized the fatal flaw in his plan. None of them were wearing shoes at that moment. Unless they could add those lifts to the house slippers of every single person in Japan they might potentially visit, that idea was out.

     "How about in our socks?" Conan suggested, "We wear them almost everywhere, anyway. We would appear taller that way easily enough no matter where we went, so long as we didn't go barefoot."

     "That could work." Haibara said in approval, Agasa nodded too, "However..."

     "Yeah," Conan replied, "That's still only delaying the inevitable."

     "No matter how tall we get, someone will still eventually realize the rest of our bodies aren't growing with our height." Haibara said.

     "That means that now, more than ever before, the time we have to find a cure is limited." Conan surmised.

     "About that..." Haibara said, suddenly pensive.

     "Hm? Haibara?"

     "Should worst come to worst, there is something that will prevent our exposure..."

     "But...?" Conan asked, hearing the implication in Haibara's voice.

     "But... while it would prevent our identities from being discovered, it would also likely prevent us from getting them back."

     "Come again?"

     "I think I know what she means, Shinichi." Dr. Agasa replied, "Early in our research to find your cure, we came across a possibility."

     "One that, in the experimental stages, proved a failure at the time." Haibara commented.

     "It was a drug that would cause your bodies to expel the APTX-4869 drug."

     "Expel?"

   ;   "It would locate the traces of the drug without our bodies and force them out via bodily fluids, such as sweat and tears." Haibara explained, "However, it would have no effect on our bodies' size."

     "Meaning it would cast out the drug, but it wouldn't restore our original sizes."

     "Exactly." Haibara said, "Without APTX-4869 within our bodies, we would resume our growth. But only at a much slower pace. A pace fairly equivalent to the growth rate of the average Japanese child. For obvious reasons, I dismissed it as a failure. But, it's very possible that we may need it if we're to survive."

     "In other words, if we run out of time, we'll have no choice but to give up in order to simply live?"

     Haibara and the doctor were silent. Conan hit the nail right on the head.