Detective Conan: The System Takes Me to Zero's World

"Vermouth should have been able to transmit the coordinates of the purification room." Kudo Yuki placed her phone upside down on the bar. "The source of the painful emotions you just mentioned, Shushu, is right there."

Shushu poked his little head out of his apron pocket and sniffed. "It's gone now...it's frozen! It's freezing cold, like being thrown into a winter river!"

Amuro Toru hung the cleaned cup upside down on the rack. The metallic clinking sound was so crisp and harsh that it was almost piercing. "After the synapses were forcibly burned, all that remained was programmed obedience. What Karasuma Renya wanted was never loyalty, but a puppet."

Kudo Yuki thought of the way Voltaire always followed Gin, like a clumsy, large dog, always secretly clenching his fists after being scolded. No matter how foolish his reluctance was then, it was still more vivid than this hollowed-out shell now.

"Though the two Raven Team members have been secretly detained by the Metropolitan Police Department, Gin can't find them in Nagano Prefecture, so he'll return to headquarters sooner or later." She tapped her fingertips on the bar, her rhythm coinciding with the faint noise coming from the micro-comm in Amuro Toru's pocket. "When the time comes, I'm afraid the old man will let Gin taste this vodka-brewed 'bitter' himself."

Amuro Toru silently filled the coffee machine with grounds, the white mist of steam blurring his profile. "Those two Raven Team members did mention that the walls of the cleanroom are embedded with a special alloy that can block all electromagnetic signals. Vermouth must have taken a considerable risk when she transmitted the coordinates."

"An alloy wall that shields electromagnetic signals..." Kudo Yuki's fingertips drew a cold arc on the bar, and the glass in the corner of the bar suddenly trembled slightly. "The coordinates transmitted by Vermouth are not real-time signals at all."

Amuro Toru pressed the lever of the coffee machine, and the dark brown liquid swirled in the porcelain cup: "You mean—"

"The pre-hidden transmitter was triggered." Kudo Yuki looked up and happened to see the indicator light of the micro-communicator in Amuro Toru's pocket flash red. "To be able to hide something in that place, and to ensure that the signal can penetrate the cracks in the alloy and be transmitted... She carried it close to her body for at least three months."

Amuro Toru's knuckles turned white against the edge of the coffee machine. When the steam dissipated, the shock in his eyes was just covered by the swirling coffee foam in the porcelain cup. "Seventeen minutes of window, three months of close concealment... She even took into account the battery degradation of the transmitter."

Kudo Yuki suddenly leaned over, groping under the bar for a moment with her fingertips, and pulled out a half-length of thin wire wrapped in insulating tape. It was left over from yesterday's repair of the bar's circuit, and now she had bent it into a tiny loop.

"The gaps between the molecules of this alloy form a honeycomb structure. Only when the ventilation fan is activated, at the resonant frequency, can signals of a specific band penetrate." She twisted her wrist slightly, and the iron wire ring reflected light under the lamplight. "Vermouth's hidden transmitter must be embedded in..."

Amuro Toru took over, his voice low, "The temperature changes in the subcutaneous fat layer can buffer the battery's decay. When the alloy wall blocks the signal, the transmitter relies on body heat to maintain the lowest power consumption."

The wire ring on Kudo Yuki's fingertips spun faster. "And she's even figured out the ventilation fan's startup cycle. She's clearly treating herself like a mobile phone signal tower."

Amuro Toru's fingertips slid across the handle of the coffee cup, the warmth from the cup unable to block the coolness that crept up from his fingertips. He raised his eyes and met Kudo Yuki's suddenly sharp gaze behind her glasses, a sharpness that only shone when she was solving the most difficult situations.

"The rejection reaction to the subcutaneous implant will last at least seventy-two hours," he said, his voice slightly hoarse from the lingering steam. "The coordinates she gave won't deviate more than three hundred meters, but the time window is compressed to seventeen minutes... This is a life-or-death struggle for us."

Shushu suddenly jumped out from under the bar and bumped into Kudo Yuki's ankle with his chubby body. "The heartbeat inside the ice is getting faster! It's like a little hammer hitting the ice!"

Kudo Yuki bent down and picked it up in her palm, and her fingertips trembled as they touched the dense fur on the mouse's belly.

She suddenly remembered the encrypted email sent by Vermouth three days ago, and the red lip symbol at the end that was deliberately erased in half - at that time she just thought it was a common prank of the other party, but now thinking about it, it looked more like a fingerprint stained with blood.

"The ventilation system at Karasuma Group headquarters starts every hour and runs for five minutes each time," she said, pulling out a tablet hidden under the bar. The screen lit up, revealing a dense stream of data. "But the cleanroom's independent circulation system runs every three hours. Vermouth calculated that we would follow headquarters' routine, so she's deliberately leaving a loophole."

Amuro Toru suddenly pulled a toolbox from under the bar, the hex wrenches inside gleaming from his grip. "She's forcing us to act early. Seventeen minutes is enough to remove three alloy plates, but not enough for us to escape unscathed."

"Who said we need to remove the alloy plates?" Kudo Yuki suddenly laughed. Her fingertips traced an arc on the tablet, pulling up a map of Nagano Prefecture. "Yingchuan sent me news yesterday that the ventilation ducts of Nagano Trading Co., Ltd. are connected to the exhaust gas treatment system of the cleanroom."

Shushu suddenly pricked up his ears in her palm: "Brother Jingguang's smell is changing! Like leaves wet by rain!"

Amuro Toru suddenly stopped moving. Another burst of noise came from the micro communicator in his pocket, but this time it was clearly mixed with the rhythm of Morse code.

"That's the signal from Date and the others," Kudo Yuki had already pulled out the decoder. The dots of light dancing on the screen formed short sentences. "Matsuda installed a thermal imager in the ventilation duct."

She suddenly stuffed Shushu into Amuro Toru's arms, turned around and pulled out a metal detector from deep inside the bar. "Now it's time to let everyone know that the 'fine wine' he's been brewing for decades has long been mixed with other ingredients."

Amuro Toru caught the rat, his fingertips touching the flaring fur on its back. He watched Kudo Yuki adjust the probe to resonance mode and recalled Kuroda Heibei's incoherent words: "There's never been a shortage of traitors in the Karasuma family's bloodline."

"Vermouth's transmitter frequency should match the activation wavelength of the 'ES Dark Amber' device," Kudo Yuki adjusted the detection rod. The metallic hum made the glass on the bar tremble again. "She deliberately asked us to find the purification room so that we could see with our own eyes the 'collection' her grandfather had refined from living people."

Suddenly, Rat screamed, "So many heartbeats! All in the ice! Like little frozen bugs!"

"In seventeen minutes, the ventilation fans in Nagano Prefecture will start on time." Kudo Yuki tucked the probe behind her waist and ripped off the apron on the bar to tie it into a belt. "Let's go check out those 'collections' and tell Gin that the vodka he's been craving has actually already become someone else's snack."

Toru Amuro took a last look at the clock on the wall. The second hand was pointing to the last ten seconds before the hour.

He put Shushu into the secret compartment under the bar, where spare anesthetic needles and trackers were hidden - all of which were specially prepared by Kudo Yuki for the infiltration, just like she always added half an extra sugar cube in his coffee, always just the right amount.

"Remember?" He followed her out, his voice so soft it sounded like a sigh, "when we first signed the operational agreement in Poirot, you said you hated puppets the most."

Kudo Yuki opened the door of the cafe, and the evening breeze, carrying the halo of the street lamp, rushed in, gilding the ends of her hair. "So this time, it's time to cut the thread."

The rat in the secret compartment suddenly became quiet. It pried open the cracks in the wood with its chubby little paws and looked out, as if it could see through the wall and see the heartbeats in the ice, which were gradually warming up with the sound of sirens coming from afar.

In an abandoned hot spring hotel on the outskirts of Nagano Prefecture, the aroma of pine wood mixed with the dampness of rain permeates the air.

Gin held the purple clay teapot in front of his eyes, and the tea dripped into the celadon cup like a silver thread. The foam dissipated, reflecting the lingering hostility in his eyes.

Waste." He tapped the table with his fingertips, and the sound of the cup rim hitting the wooden table was more frightening than the shattered phone screen just now.

The two members of the Raven Team who were taken away by the Metropolitan Police Department, along with their experimental data hidden in the basement of Nagano Trading Co., Ltd., were like a sand castle washed down by rain, with not even a speck of dust left.

Standing in the shadows, Cohen gripped the sling of his sniper rifle tightly, his knuckles turning white. He still remembered Rum's coded instructions from yesterday: "Clean up Nagano's tail and don't let Gin see the flaw."

But now, the silver lighter turning between Gin's fingers, the flame core flickered, making the cold sweat on the back of his neck shine.

"Is there any news from Vodka?" Gin suddenly raised his eyes, and his gaze swept across Cohen like an ice-hardened blade.

He always felt something was wrong. Karasuma Renya suddenly transferred Vodka back to headquarters and even downgraded his communication permissions, as if... he was deliberately hiding something.

Cohen's Adam's apple rolled. "Headquarters said... Vodka is assisting with the final commissioning of the ES Amber, so communication is currently unavailable."

"Debugging?" Gin sneered and poured half a cup of cold tea onto the floor. As the tea seeped into the cracks in the floorboards, he suddenly remembered the scene he had glimpsed in the hallway of headquarters last week.

Several people in white coats pushed a cart covered with white cloth. The bulging outline under the cloth looked very much like Vodka's sturdy body.

The rain outside the window suddenly became heavier, hitting the dilapidated wooden lattice window with a crackling sound.

Gin took out his pocket watch. On the inside of the watch cover was a yellowed photo. It was taken ten years ago when he and Vodka first joined the organization. The two young boys were wearing ill-fitting black suits and holding guns stupidly.

"Tell Rum," he closed his pocket watch, the metal clasp's click being particularly clear amidst the sound of rain, "I want to see Vodka before noon tomorrow. Otherwise, whoever wants to clean up this mess in Nagano can do it."

Cohen retreated, hearing the sound of shattering porcelain behind him. He didn't dare look back, instead quickening his pace and heading out into the rain. His phone vibrated in his pocket—a new message from Rum: "Tell him to look in the cleanroom."

Inside the hotel, Gin was slowly wiping the tea stains that had splattered on his sleeve with a handkerchief. He suddenly remembered what Kudo Yuki and Rum had said on the phone that day, and it pierced his heart like a needle: "Cohen's mission is just to clean up the mess."

He threw the handkerchief into the brazier, and the sound of the flames licking the cloth seemed as if something was hidden and was burning.

The ashes in the brazier were swirling in the draft, and Gin stood up and pushed open the creaking wooden window.

In the rain, the neon sign of Nagano Trading Co., Ltd. was faintly visible in the fog, red like a solidified blood scab - it was the last active base of the Raven Squad, and now only an empty shell remained.

"Cohen has a good shot, but unfortunately he has a wooden brain." He muttered to himself, rubbing the rust on the window frame with his fingertips.

Rum always said that Cohen was a good knife, but it was too blunt, so someone had to sharpen it for him. As time went by, the blade inevitably got stained with blood.

Just like the last time when Cohen was asked to assassinate that woman, anyone with a discerning eye could see that it was a borrowed knife, but Cohen just pulled the trigger mechanically.

His phone vibrated on his desk. It was a message from the organization's encrypted channel. Gin glanced at the screen, his brows furrowed in a sudden frown—the headquarters security system indicated that the cleanroom's exhaust fan had been activated for over seventeen minutes at an unscheduled time.

"Interesting." He pulled out his Black Star pistol, the barrel gleaming coldly in the dim light. Karasuma Renya's control over the cleanroom was almost paranoid, requiring even the cleaning staff to report in three days in advance. Who could possibly tamper with it?

Is it the Vermouth who always likes to walk on the edge of the rules, or... He thought of Kudo Yuki who spoke frivolously on the phone. She could always pierce people's hearts like a thin thorn at the most critical moment.

Footsteps echoed from the stairs. Cohen, soaking wet, stood at the doorway, clutching a sealed bag. "Found this in a Raven Squad member's locker. Looks like... a Metropolitan Police Department tracker."

Gin took the bag, pinching the corner with his fingertips and shaking it. The fingernail-sized black device was still stained with half a dried cherry blossom petal—the double-flowered cherry blossoms unique to Nagano Prefecture. The Metropolitan Police Department's trackers would never use such distinctly regional plant fibers as camouflage. It seemed more like some kind of marking, a deliberate flaw.

"Metropolitan Police Department." His gums tightened as he pronounced the name.

The last time I monitored the phone call between Wine and Rum, the sarcasm about "wiping your ass" pierced my brain like an icicle.

At that time, he thought she was just relying on the little bit of favor she had with "Umaru Renya" to act recklessly. Now, thinking about it, it was obvious that she had already seen through Rum's plan to use Cohen to clear the obstacles, but he was kept in the dark.

Cohen suddenly whispered, "Rum said the 'collection' in the purification room has been a bit unstable lately. I want you to go over and take a look."

"A collection?" Gin sneered, throwing the sealed bag into the brazier. The tracker sizzled softly in the heat, quickly melting into a black mass. "He'll definitely find something for me to do."

But the footsteps still moved towards the door.

He had to see what Karasuma Renya had hidden in the purification room that was so worthy of Vodka not being able to get a single word out. He also had to see if Kudo Yuki had been playing a new role in this game, using the name of "fine wine" to quietly make a move.

As he was about to leave, he glanced back at the wall clock. The hour hand pointed to midnight, and there were still twelve hours left before the deadline he gave to Rum.

The rain was still falling, soaking his black windbreaker. As he inserted the car key into the lock, Gin suddenly remembered the silly thing that Voteka always said: "Brother, after we finish this job, let's go to Hokkaido to soak in the hot springs."

The engine roared, tearing through the rain curtain. He looked at the gradually shrinking shadow of the hotel in the rearview mirror. There were some words that he was afraid he would never have the chance to hear again.

To be continued...