A/N: Hiya everyboooody! Not much to this one, but things do get a little more mysterious.
But next? That's right! KID!

And, with that perfect segue (not) I think I've found the two funniest -R rated- (yes, that's simply another way to say "contains sex jokes") Conan-related videos on youtube.
No, scratch that last part. On youtube period.

watch?v=IXnfC7uPhRY
watch?v=C8Dpcg0-bjg

Anyway, this is one of my shortest chapters so far (in this story anyway), and certainly not my best, but I couldn't really think of anything else to throw in there. (That wasn't blatant filler.)

Also, I apologies for being a little late, but I do have a good reason: My sister went into labor early Tuesday morning! Everyone, send your love to little baby Camden! (Though I admit, I have no idea if that's how it's spelled or not. XD That's just phonetic.) That also means most of this was written at 3 A.M. in a hospital waiting room, so if you see any errors or ways to improve the chapter, kindly point them out if you would. : ) The laptop keyboard doesn't like me. DX

The usual quality rant still applies, it's just in addition to that. ;D

- - - - Reviews! - - - -

Chelseaj500: Thank you! I really do appreciate the reviews. They help me power through the harder parts of writing these out. XD And good points, too. But Aoyama-sensei, lord of suspense, is the only one who can say for sure. And that means It'll probably be 30 years before we know.

ZXCVBNMEM: Thanks! : ) I'm actually planning on majoring in Computer Engineering and AI, so that I can be a game developer. That's the 'big dream'.

Angel in Exile: I'll break these down by chapter.
Chap 6: Well, you have seen through at least episode 309, right? Hehe and I have reasons for doing what I do, and it's not entirely OOC for him to get carried away whenever Ran and Kogoro are MIA. And it was definitely my lucky day, for getting a review like that! :D
chap 10: Hehe well thanks! I like to hear it. ^_^ And now you know my evil plotting reasons for making him a little showy. :P
chap 12: Yesss, it was mostly a chance to let me get used to writing as them. I think I have most of them ok, but oddly enough the characters I've had the most trouble writing are Hakuba, Agasa and Mitsuhiko. Which sucks, 'cause most of this chapter is nothing but a conversation between Conan and Agasa. XD

"You... want me to erase them?" a male voice asked, shaking not out of fear, but its closest cousin; Nervousness. However, before he'd even given the woman on the other end of the line a chance to respond, he spoke again with a sudden surge of determination. "I understand. They'll be gone by midnight."

Though unseen, the woman still sported a dangerous, venomous smirk as she leaned back in her chair. "So fast?" she purred. "I'm impressed."

The man's shaking only intensified as he pulled up a missing persons report as anger took root, sending its burning furry coursing through his veins. "Can I talk to her?" he rasped. "How is she? Did you hurt her?" His questions only seemed to amuse the woman on the other end.

"Now, now, settle down Keiji," she said in that same casual, sultry manner that had infuriated him from the first time she'd ever called. "The deal was, you do what I ask, and I don't hurt her. Twenty questions wasn't included."

The man was silent, if only for a moment, then started out in a harsh whisper of a voice, "If I can't talk to her, how do I know she's still alive? How do I know you ever even had her to begin with!"

"Those are good points," the woman mused, bored of his games by this point. A devilish grin split her face, one that would have sent chills down anyone's spine if only they had seen it. "But not as good as mine. What if she is alive, and what if I do have her?"

His unused hand was fisted by his side, and it was taking a surprising amount of willpower to keep from smashing something.

"That's a good boy," she crooned. "I'll be expecting the case to be forgotten by midnight." The phone went dead, but the man still held it to his ear, listening to the high pitched beeping play again and again. He held it there, unaware of time passing him by, his stomach churning.

When he did finally slide his cellphone closed, he set it by the keyboard. Turning unseeing eyes to his monitor he ran his fingers through his hair. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Whether they were born of fear or rage or both, he didn't know, and frankly didn't care. He only had two hours now to erase everything, or else...

No. I won't let that happen. I'll play along for now, but I'll find that witch, whoever the hell she is. And when I do...

Somewhere, miles and miles away, Vermouth sat in her favorite chair sipping her namesake with a contented sigh.

"Hakase?" Conan hissed, staying to the edge of the steps as he made his way down. He was trying to keep from stepping on any weak, squeaky boards that the others might hear. "Hakase?" he called a little louder once he was safely at the bottom of the steps. He scanned the room over when he got no response, finding the slumped form of the professor, half sitting in his chair and half laying on the workbench strewn with various leftover bits of metal and plastic. "Oi! Hakase!"

The professor let out a mighty snort, sitting up, eyes half lidded and marginally crossed. "Ai-kun?" he half asked and half mumbled, almost unintelligible behind a yawn. He blinked, apparently noticing that the world was far blurrier than it had been before he'd fallen asleep. The next thing he knew, the familiar plastic frames were being pressed into his hand, and upon sliding them home found Conan looking up at him, exasperation lurking behind his gaze. "Oh! Conan-kun!" He called, shoulders relaxing minutely as he let out a relieved breath. "Did you need something?"

Conan took note of his odd behavior and the bags under his eyes, and figured that most likely whatever the professor wanted to show him had been costing him some precious hours of sleep. "You were the one that asked me to come over, you know," he said dryly.

The professor looked vaguely confused for a moment, before his memory seemed to catch up with him. "Oh!" He said with a snap of his fingers. "Of course, the phone!"

"Phone?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yes, it's around here... Somewhere..."

The professor went to stand up, a joint crackling here and there as he had fallen asleep in a fairly unorthodox position, then swept aside some of the blackened scrap metal on the table. "I finished it around noon...", he paused just long enough to yawn. "And then I guess I just fell asleep," he finished with a sheepish smile. He sifted through the scrap pieces of materiel he had laying around, until finally he pulled something red out of the mess. "Ah, there you are!"

He held the cellphone up between the two of them, Conan giving it a once over. He realized immediately that it looked just like the two already sitting in his pocket. Just, like them. With his critical eye, he noticed that there was a scratch etched into the display that was the exact same size and in the exact same shape as one he'd gotten on his 'Conan' phone just a few days ago. He held a hand out, asking the professor to hand it to him. He turned it again and again through his hands, looking for any differences and coming up short.

"It's a great duplicate," he started slowly. Indistinguishable was more like it. "But I'm guessing this isn't a back up in case I drop my phone in a fountain."

The professor's shoulders shook with a quiet, bassy laugh. "No, not quite."

"So, what does it do?"

"Do you have your bowtie on you right now?" Agasa answered with a question of his own.

"No, I didn't think I'd need it. Besides, " he pulled on the front of his pale yellow T-shirt. "T-shirts and bowties don't really go together." He paused, eyes darting to the door leading back into the living room where a certain strawberry blond sat, then muttered just loud enough for the cranky undertones to be discernible "Even if I don't have any fashion sense, I still know that much."

Agasa, deciding to ignore that last bit for the sake of the conversation, carried on. "Um, right... Well, that's the point. There are a lot of times when you can't wear your bowtie, and if anyone ever found out you carried it around in your pocket..." he let his sentence hang.

"So, a cellphone voice changer then, huh?" he asked, rubbing a fingertip over the smooth plastic casing. "So I just set up a voice and make a call or...?" Taking a cue from the older man, Conan let his sentence hang, dragging out the final syllable.

The professor took the phone back, holding it so that Conan could easily see the buttons. "You just hold down the pound key for three seconds," and here he did so, moving one of his larger-sized fingers over the key in question. "And the voice changer's options pop up." Said options appeared as if on cue. "There's all of your old options, like age, gender, pitch, and they all work exactly as they used to."

Conan nodded, giving a short grunt of acknowledgment.

"And then there's this one, " he continued, moving a finger to hover above the 'record' option. "It's pretty self explanatory, really. If you record a person's voice, the settings will automatically be set to reproduce it."

Conan hummed a quiet "hmm," taking the phone and going through the motions he'd just been shown. "Hold pound, and that's it?" he asked, the last word being projected with a shrill feminine voice.

"That," the professor said with a proud smile. "And it still works with your button speaker. Not to mention, you can set the record up to use the microphone on your glasses."

Over the next few minutes the professor went on to explain the rest of the intricacies and operational limits of the new device, and when all was finally said and over with, Conan still had one question left.

"By the way, didn't you say you had something else to show me?"

"Oh, that?" he asked, trying to seem surprised by the change in topic. But one thing anyone who'd ever known the professor could tell you about him, was that he couldn't act to save his life. "That's not important," he went on in the same unconvincing tones, giving a dismissive wave of his hand. "Though I was curious about the Kid riddle. How is it coming along?"

The abrupt change of subject could have been obvious to a rather sharp-minded toddler, but Conan decided to drop it. It wasn't that his curiosity wasn't slowly consuming him, feeding on his very insides with the intensity of white hot fire, but rather that he trusted the professor completely. Whatever it was, it was definitely important. But, it was also something the professor didn't want to share. That didn't mean he was giving up on finding out what it was, he'd probably hang on the man's every word now, but he wasn't going to bring it up, either.

Realizing in some hazy recess of his mind that he still hadn't answered his question, he decided to start talking before the stretch could become too noticeable. "It's coming along fine," he said, feigning nonchalance, though his performance was actually believable. "The date was easy. 'On the eve of the exterminator's return' means tomorrow night. Eve, meaning it will happen at night, and exterminator likely means a terminator that has already passed. A terminator in this case being the name of the dividing line between the light and dark sides of the moon. Seeing as how the lunar cycle starts with a new moon, if the terminator has already passed that puts it on the night of a full moon. Since the terminator will be returning, it'll be the last night of the full moon. And the last night of the full moon this month is the 23'rd, tomorrow."

Agasa nodded along, grasping chunks of logic as Conan's explanations flew over his head, out the window, and were likely making good headway on their quest to escape earth's gravity.

His brows pulled together then, a slight quark of the lips something between a scowl and a frown taking shape, and he crossed his arms over his chest. "Now, the other part is trickier. 'When two becomes one' could mean just about anything from marriage to advanced mathematics, and 'time itself will guide me' isn't much better. If I had to guess, I'd probably say it had something to do with the position of the moon or the hands on a clock, though I'm not sure he'd make his entire notice about the moon. That would be too easy."

"Do you have any ideas about the second note?" Agasa asked.

Conan shook his head, leaning his chin on his palm. "All I can tell is that the part where he talks about us is probably a set up, like his last heist notice. But..." Every time that thought occurred to him, he had a vivid memory of the Kaitou Kid, dressed in his black street clothes, holding the cold steel of a fake gun against the back of his head. "But a magician never pulls the same trick in front of the same audience twice."