Ghost in the Machine
by Icka! M. Chif

Six words typed on to the keyboard.

'Can you come out and play?'

Enter.

The typist leaned back in the chair and waited.

Silence for a few moments. That was to be expected, he wasn't talking to a human, per say.

Somewhere else, a small light flickered, and a response came.

'?'

A grin as the typist leaned forward and pressed a few more keys on the keyboard.

'Can Hiroki-kun come out and play?'

Another delay, then another question.

'Who is this?'

Glee was nearly tangible in the air as the typist rubbed their hands together and responded.

'Come out and see'

A light came on above the monitor, gleaming like a miniature deamon's eye.

'The Kaitou Kid?!'

The white clad thief laughed and wiggled his fingers at the camera installed on top of the monitor. "Hello!"

'....'

The Kid chuckled at the response. He got that a lot.

'What do you want?'

The thief leaned forward on the chair he was straddling and grinned. "I want to know if you can come out and play."

The white text on the dark screen flickered and vanished, to be replaced by the image of a small boy, rather on the pale and skinny side. "Play?" The voice sounded tinny on the computer's speakers, but there was no mistaking the confusion in his voice.

"Play." The Kid affirmed.

Hiroki, or Noah, gave him a skeptical look. "What are you doing here anyway? How'd you know I was here?"

"I had a feeling that you might still be in there somewhere, waiting to see how things will turn out." The thief leaned backwards, causing the chair to squeak in protest. "I am a master of subterfuge, after all. Informing Edogawa that you were committing suicide was the perfect way of throwing everyone off your trail while you disappeared into the background. Or slept, as the case may be. And since you killed yourself as a human, it's no surprise that everyone believed it."

"But you didn't." The boy on the screen looked solem.

"Nope!" The Kid shot him another grin, this one a little less merriment filled. "The living want to go on living, regardless of what their circumstances may be. Hiroki-kun found a way to do so through Noah, seemed only logical that Noah would find a way to do the same."

"You were there... weren't you?" The AI didn't have extrapolate further on 'there'. There was only one 'There', the experimental COCOON game that he had taken over, that one Edogawa Conan had defeated, saving the lives of not only himself but of forty-nine others as well.

The Kid smirked, shrugging. "I like to keep track of anything that may cause me problems in the future. Safety precaution and all that."

The serious boy nodded. "And now?"

The grin was back in full force. "As I said, would you like to come out and play?"

Hiroki frowned. "You mean to steal me."

"Only-" The thief held up a glove clad finger. "If you want to be. There's a wonderful thing out there called 'The Internet' which is a wonderful play ground. You may not be able to actually touch people, but I'd be willing to be there's plenty of people out there willing to play with you."

Hiroki's head tilted in confusion. "Why?"

"Heh." The Kid tilted his head down, his grin growing more gleeful. "For once, it has nothing to do with my usual heists. This.. this is pure Mischief. No one expects to you to steal what's supposedly already gone, huh? And besides," He shrugged, hiding his personal thoughts and motives behind the melancholy gesture. "Everyone should have a chance to be a kid."

"Hmm..." Hiroki thought it over for a minute, and the thief could swear he heard the processors whirrrrrrrring. "I take it you have a place in mind for me to hide then?"

"Yup. Got it already set up, no one would know that you're there." He chuckled. "It's not like I have anyone to tell anyway."

Hiroki's eyes narrowed. "And what do you want in return?"

The thief's gaze was level. "Nothing."

For a computer monitor, Hiroki's gaze was rather piercing. The Kid threw his hands up into the air in a dramatic gesture as he lamented. "Nobody ever -trusts- me! Just because I happen to -steal- a few things a couple of times, and out wit the cops occasionally..."

Hiroki wasn't impressed.

"Oh, all right." The thief grumbled settling back down. "-One- favour, other than keeping quiet about me. But like I said, this has nothing to do with my usual job, this is -Mischief-." A sly smirk grew across his face again. "And one I think you'll like, involving a mutual 'friend' of ours."

"Friend?" the boy looked skeptical.

"Otherwise known as one 'Edogawa Conan, Tantei'."

Interest peeked, Hiroki listened.

-Several days later-

"Agasa-sensei?" Ai looked up from her computer data that she'd left to process over night. "Have you been playing with my computer?"

"Hmm?" The portly scientist looked up from the beakers he was holding. "No. Why? Is something the matter?"

The blonde girl frowned, her brows furrowing as she pondered the data. "No... it's just that the data looks different. I could swear I wasn't this far ahead in analyzing the chemical process..."

Softly, from the depths of the computer network in Agasa's lab, a small boy who was now a computer AI called 'Noah's Ark, laughed.

-fin-

This actually has a odd thought pattern behind it.
Was thinking that Hakuba would fit into the virtual London very easily, with his deerstalker and everything.
Wondering where Hakuba was sent me wondering where the Kid was, after all, that DNA testing thing could prove to be quite dangerous to him.
The Kid set off the plot bunny.
... so we're not really Kid obbesssive, honest.