"Furuya-san... are you sure about this?"
The mission felt beyond bizarre. Kazami Yuya sat behind the wheel of a nondescript cargo van, having just picked up his third semi-conscious "package."
The person responsible for these takedowns was surgical—efficient, cold, and utterly relentless. These dangerous individuals, who usually gave Public Security months of headaches, hadn't even been granted the chance to fight back.
Kazami couldn't help but speculate wildly about the identity of the person feeding them these locations.
"I still haven't figured out his ultimate objective," Amuro Tooru replied, his voice low and contemplative.
If these people were the types that couldn't be handed over to the regular police through official channels...
Ding!
A fourth text arrived. This time, it was an address in Haido-cho.
"Furuya-san, is he going to keep going all night?" Kazami asked, a frown deepening on his face. There was a certain lawless quality to this that made him uneasy.
"You focus on driving. I'm going to go into the back and 'interview' our guests."
Amuro gave Kazami the new coordinates and slipped into the rear of the van.
While Amuro was busy playing janitor in the wake of the "Repairman's" path of destruction, the grandfather-grandson duo of the century arrived at Suguru Itakura's mountain villa in Gunma.
The hidden entries in the diary had been precise: the key was tucked away behind the staircase. Conan retrieved it and made short work of the lock.
"This is a bit too careless of him, isn't it?" the Professor whispered as they slipped inside.
"Itakura was already planning to take the money and run. He probably didn't have the mental energy left for home security," Conan said. He walked straight to the computer desk and yanked open the drawer.
Sure enough, a floppy disk was hidden inside. This was it—the software Itakura had abandoned halfway through.
"Shinichi, look at the time." The Professor checked his watch. It was nearly midnight, the agreed-upon hour.
If everything went according to plan, the Organization would be sending an email with the transaction details any second now.
"Yeah."
The Great Detective reached out and hit the power button. "Go for it, Noah's Ark!"
The boot screen flashed briefly before a cascade of incomprehensible windows popped up and vanished in the blink of an eye.
"That's remarkably smooth..." the Professor noted. He knew exactly what was happening; the computer had been completely hijacked by a certain AI.
Hiroki wasn't even trying to hide the process. If he had wanted to, no human observer would have ever noticed the intrusion.
"It's here!"
After a few minutes of agonizing silence, an email pinged into the inbox.
"What? It's password-protected?!" the Professor cried out in shock. At this final stage, Itakura had finally shown a spark of caution.
A countdown for the password entry appeared on the screen. Who knew what would happen if it hit zero...
The monitor flickered for about five seconds before a string of encrypted characters—[********]—was automatically entered into the prompt.
"Tomorrow at midnight. Coin-operated locker number 0032, bottom level of Kenbashi Station," Conan read aloud, his brow furrowing.
Forget tomorrow at midnight; as soon as the sun came up, news of Itakura's death would likely break. He was a celebrity in his field; the media wouldn't just ignore his passing. Once the Organization saw the headlines, there was no way they'd show up for a trade.
"Kenbashi Station is under renovation right now. There won't be any staff around at night," the Professor observed. "What do we do now? Should we retreat?"
Suddenly, the phone behind them rang. It was Hiroki.
"Insert the disk into the computer first," the AI's voice commanded.
"..."
As the drive whirred into life, the password-guessing game began anew. The screen flickered violently as black windows cascaded down the monitor. This old computer was currently enduring a processing load it was never designed for.
"He's scanning the data, isn't he?" The Professor's eyes could barely keep up with the scrolling text.
"Well? What kind of software was Itakura actually making?" Tsuneo's voice joined the call.
"Hmm..." Hiroki paused for a second. "It's exactly what we suspected."
The screen returned to normal, and Hiroki's voice sounded again, tinged with a digital sort of gravity.
"I see," Tsuneo replied, then fell silent.
"Hey! What did you two suspect?" Conan's curiosity was burning. "Tell me!"
"Conan-kun, do you remember the original dream shared by Suguru Itakura and the culprit, Ryosuke Soma?" Hiroki asked.
"Yeah... back when they were young, they wanted to create a Shogi program that could defeat any human master, right?" Conan nodded.
"That kind of software is different from a typical game that just follows a set of pre-programmed routines," Tsuneo added. "To beat a grandmaster, the program itself requires an incredibly high capacity for learning and independent thought."
"Wait..." Professor Agasa's eyes widened as the pieces began to click. "Itakura stopped development two years ago, and then the Organization forced him to start again..."
In other words, Itakura had been working on the foundations of this software for years, perhaps even decades.
"An Artificial Intelligence?" Conan murmured. He thought back to the "Cocoon" game world—those NPCs who felt as real as any living human.
To raise the dead against the stream of time...
"No," the Professor said, shaking his head as he offered his own insight. "Before the Cocoon was revealed to the world, people had almost no concept of a true virtual reality. Their goal is likely an AI that can achieve 'eternal life' within the digital network."
Living people turned into programs?
Is such a feat even possible?
"It's similar to the relationship between Hiroki and Noah's Ark," Tsuneo said. "They want the people in the real world to continue existing in another form."
When an AI's logic, memories, and personality are perfectly mapped to a target... then for all intents and purposes...
"There are some flaws in the fine details, but Itakura's research direction was sound. If he had continued, it was entirely possible he could have succeeded," Hiroki analyzed.
"Heh. So they want to stuff that immortal old fogey into a computer, do they?"
Tsuneo let out a cold, sharp laugh. In the background of the call, the faint sound of a muffled scream could be heard. It seemed the "Repairman" was still busy with his hands.
"What about the trade?" Conan asked, his voice heavy.
"Cancel it," Tsuneo said flatly. "After tonight, they won't be in any mood to worry about a software trade."
The line went dead.
The Great Detective pocketed the disk. He and the Professor meticulously wiped their traces from the villa before vanishing into the snowy night.
"Professor... do you think our theory is right?" Conan asked as they drove back.
"Hiroki's analysis is never wrong. What Itakura was designing was definitely a form of AI," the Professor replied. "But as for why the Black Organization wants it... that remains a mystery."
Judging by the woman's words on the phone, they wanted someone's consciousness to last forever.
The boy genius Hiroki had committed suicide, yet his essence lived on, sailing through the digital sea aboard the "Ark" he created. With that precedent, the Organization's goal felt terrifyingly plausible.
"So that's why Itakura wrote that he had to stop... 'for the sake of all humanity'..." Conan whispered.
If an omnipotent entity like Noah's Ark fell into the hands of people like them, it would be the ultimate nightmare for the world. Even without a master, such power was enough to make anyone tremble.
(To be continued)
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