middleofsomewhere | Memory Cave

The two memories, in isolation, seem very... odd. A memory of being an odd but mundane(?) firefighter, and a memory of fighting that man with... fire powers. But Haibara has enough clues to put things together. Both about the life of the man she remembers and what's possibly going on here.

The first is... well, she's been getting inoculated on the possibility of unreasonable, fictitious things being possible. Burnish, they could wield fire. Firefighting became a mix of rescue operations and fighting against arson-based terrorism. Something like that, right?

The second is a greater cause for concern. The fact Conan had a memory not his own and had shared that with Haibara was the biggest hint. Then Haibara's own memories, ones that didn't even come from her world... the fact that she was now trapped in a cave, with an unsettling knowledge that the exit will appear once the time is right.... and seeing the man in the cave with her.

The pieces were falling into place in her mind, and she didn't like the look of this finished puzzle.

Reigning in her fears, she spoke up. "So, what did you see?"

“Stuff that doesn’t belong to me.” Galo answers as he lifts a hand and pops his shoulder. “Do you want me to say the details or just keep a lid on it? It’s not my stuff and I’m assuming it’s yours.” He folds his legs under him and watches her.

If he’s wrong then he kept the secrets contained in those memories by saying little. But his gut feeling tells him that this is who those memories belong to. He isn’t the smartest of people but the little details fit.

He shuts his eyes. “Bit more concerned about what you saw if this is a two way exchange.” There are a number of not so great moments that could come up. Some of them worse than others. “And if you saw something I do want the details.”

"I saw some pretty fantastic things, from my perspective." She sighs as she thinks about the memories. Was she becoming too desensitized to this sort of unrealistic thing, or was she not adapting fast enough?

"This one seemed to be typical firefighter work, rescuing a girl from a burning building. The tools are different than my world, but I'd assume they're more typical in yours." Well, the staff seemed reminiscent of older Japanese equipment, but those didn't shoot out hooks to catch onto waiting planes.

"The first one had you, I'm assuming, fighting a large man with fire powers, while trying to rescue another man, who also seemed to have something similar." She shrugs. She had taken all the information she could from that, but it wasn't a terrible amount.

It sounded like this guy was a hero, the exact opposite of her.

"With that said, I'd like to know what you saw. It's good if you can keep a secret, but I'd rather know what secret it is you're keeping."

He crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes. “Give me a sec to remember the details.” He says as he leans back. “The first one was on a train. You were having some Kaito Kid act as your voice. Someone with a ‘codename’ called Bourbon wanted to get their hands on you. Someone else really wanted you dead.”

He stops leaning. He couldn’t figure out everything going on in the memory, it had been too complicated. Too many threads that belonged to a greater world. Galo glances around the cave once. It looks simple and there’s no exit. “Other one a lady refused to let go of you and both of you were being shot at. But...you were feeling okay about it. Because it meant something to be protected.”

His tone is matter of fact, the details recited as he knows them but not elaborated on. Ordinarily he wouldn’t say much else. His memories are his memories. “Second memory you saw was probably my first mission. We noticed a girl was trapped inside still and I went to get her.” But the second one.

He pauses and rubs the back of his neck, eyes on the ground for a second. “Was the person I was protecting breaking up like...they were turning to ashes?”

It's a little alarming that this guy got so many details about the Black Organization, and her trick for fooling them aboard the Bell Tree Express. Kudo-kun's trick, rather, and Kaito Kid's.

Knowing about Bourbon and Vermouth... well, if the vision he saw was during the call with Kid, he wouldn't know Bourbon's face, just his voice. Vermouth, on the other hand, was the one shooting at Haibara in that second memory. That's dangerous for him. He'd have to forget about it.

She pauses that train of thought as he asks a question, and then it's her turn to think back. Well, she's been going over that vision incessantly all day, so it won't be hard. "Towards the end, I think that sounds about right. He had a small flame that was going out, too. He was a 'burnish,' right?"

"Yeah, he is." He not her. There's only one moment that could be. He can almost smell the ash in the air at the very thought. Galo rubs at the back of his neck again and looks up frowning at the moment itself. Well, not like they can change what she saw.

He pauses, briefly confused. "Wait. You said towards the end. What else was in that memory?" His fight with Kray? The nasty bit before that? If she saw Kray... "...I'm betting you got some questions about this. I can answer some of them. Wonder if we're going to see more..."

It worries him. "What could be causing something like this?"

"If I had a question, it would be who that large man you were fighting was. If he appears on board the train, it seems like he would be trouble. I think I've more or less got everything else."

She's silent for a moment. "I don't have any real theories on why this is happening. But the fact that we've received the memories of the same person twice in a row suggests that there's something connecting us. If it were random, then we'd likely have gotten memories from different people the second time."

"So, we don't know what's causing it and we might end up seeing more." He looks away and scowls. "Another time we don't got a choice." He remarks then covers his mouth with his hand, his thoughts spinning together.

He's not the sort to connect the dots all together to whatever master plan exists. He's way better reading people and adapting to the moment. It's how he lived since that fire. He's quiet a moment more then he says, "Kray. The big man is Kray. I dunno if he'll really be trouble."

It seems like all he's going to say but he keeps going his voice quieter, matter of fact. "He has an agenda and if things get in the way of that. He deals with it." Like he dealt with him. The sting of betrayal and all the lies feels like when his arm was burning. He ignores it and gets up, walking a few steps away. "He'll probably play along, until he sees a chance to get what he wants."

"So it's not likely he'll attack people on sight, but instead we would have to be continually on guard in case he decides we don't coincide with his goals." She's.... used to that, honestly. But it's not a pleasant experience. Being constantly on guard.

Although to be fair, it was far likelier Galo would be the object of his disdain, or maybe somebody who could be in the way of his goals. The train council, maybe? Or team leaders?

Well, these thoughts were all, hopefully, theoretical.

He shrugs, still facing away. "Yeah. He'll just present himself as the guy that will fix everything. Try to bump people off when he's most convenient. Probably say nasty shit about Burnish and piss Lio off." Galo sighs and turns back to her, arms over his chest. He still hasn't sorted out his feelings about Kray.

Maybe he never will. Whatever respect he had left had long since dried up and fell apart. There's nothing left of that.

"What about the guys after you? If they showed up are they going to go along with things? Act like they will but actually not be?"

Right, time to... give information. This was not Haibara's modus operandi. She didn't even share information with her longtime allies.

But having half the information might be worse, in this case.

"Bourbon... might play nice. He seemed mostly interested in currying favor within the group. But he's an unknown, so he might have his own goals." There were a lot of assumptions that she didn't want to make about Bourbon. And even if her guess was accurate, he would 100% go along with another member, should they show up.

Continuing on. "Vermouth was the one who wanted me dead. She would continue to want that. At least she doesn't tend to involve others - she'll be like a sniper rifle aimed at my head. As long as you don't get involved, everybody else will be fine. She might cause a scene in order to get me alone, though."

...And then. "If anybody else showed up, then I guarantee everybody on the train would be in danger. But especially anybody connected to me." Like Galo, now. "Sorry."

Galo snorts and kicks a bit of dirt away from where they're standing. "What are you apologizing to me for? They'd be making those choices and it doesn't matter who would be in danger! I'm Burning Rescue. It's my job to help! You could have counted on me for that even if we didn't have this weird connection!"

He notes the two then says, "I doubt any other Burning would cause a fuss. They just want peace. General Vulcan...dunno. He likes to swing the law around and without back up he might settle and just be an asshole. Anyway it hasn't happened so let's just focus on now. If it goes down, we'll deal."

If it goes down, we'll deal. That's certainly one way of looking at things.

"Don't put yourself in danger for my sake. But thanks."

He offers her a thumbs up as the sense of the space subtly changes. He blinks and turns his head towards the oddity. A doorway has opened up silencing whatever retort he'd have made. He looks back to her and jerks his thumb towards it. "Looks like we can go now."

It feels right. The door appeared right when it felt like it should. He dusts himself off and says. "Hopefully we'll find out the cause of this before we get another one or something."

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deage - 2020-08-27 23:52 (UTC) - Expand

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barenakedspirit - 2020-08-28 00:36 (UTC) - Expand

Sitting through and watching Galo's third memory is... quite the experience. A lot of it strikes as intimately familiar to her. Betrayal, the gun, the anger mixed with disdain and uncaring about his life... she could relate to it.

Although to be fair, she was usually the one doing the betraying.

There were some parts of it that didn't make much sense. Some science at the beginning she couldn't quite catch, the talk about extinguishing the Earth's magma... well, at least she had a much clearer picture of Kray, at least, the man he had been fighting in the first memory she saw.

However, that's when her memory starts playing. And Haibara feels the life drain from her face.

At least she's only watching this, not reliving it. But that's a small comfort as she sees him again, hears the taunts, the gunshots.

Galo is watching, isn't he? This is... laying out all her greatest secrets, baring them in one fell swoop.

How is she going to explain this?

Of all memories it had to be this one. He could have dealt with the old terror and loss of when his life burnt to the ground and Kray had used him to get ahead. He'd have seen it differently than he used to and that would have hurt but this is a wound that has yet to scar.

Seeing it from the outside gives him a nasty dose of perspective. Kray's body language hadn't always made sense to him. He'd grown up seeing him as a hero and been blind to the subtle tells. As an adult past realizing that to Kray it hadn't been a betrayal just removing a thorn from his side that had long been tiresome? He see the moment the strike is about to happen as if he were standing in the room watching from the side wall.

His last doubts burn up to ashes and like it was waiting for that moment, the other memory plays. The details add dimensions and pieces to the puzzle he'd seen before. He still doesn't get the whole thing but enough fragments are in his hands to see a bigger picture.

His eyes narrow and his face ices over with a cold rage when the torture begins. It's wrong. It's wrong on a level that makes him itch to be close enough to sock the man in the face or snatch her up with his rescue mech and get her away from that.

It's also the past. When the memories are over, he glances at her. Her face is pale. He's smart enough to guess that was the last thing she wanted. Well, he can just talk and talk instead so whatever is going on is satisfied. "The core of the earth got this space time tear in it and let some fire aliens into our reality. The magma was going out of control because of it and because Kray'd been experimenting on Burnish. They're tied to those aliens. The aliens reacted to the treatment of the Burnish. Kray just wanted to ditch the planet and use a Burnish powered engine to take ten thousand people with him. That's what that was about. I didn't and don't agree."

He shrugs then plants himself firmly where he is. "He was probably waiting for me to do that so he had the excuse. Spent a week in that cell waiting to be executed. He could have just shot me and been done with it but, nope! Dramatic bastard."

Galo was talking... a lot. Explaining things about his memory, answering some of the questions she had before she could even ask them. Was he trying to avoid talking about hers, or trying to distract her from hers?

Still, she was digesting his words. Aliens burning the planet from within, Kray conducting experiments to create an engine powered by people, abandoning Earth to be destroyed.

It was a lot. And as she thought, this guy really did scream 'hero.'

"That's a lot to take in," she finally says, honestly. Honesty isn't usually her policy, but these are different times. "If I hadn't seen so much of it myself, I'm not certain I'd believe it."

He nods, "The whole aliens thing was a shock to us too! We used to think Burnish just had a special mutation that triggered the flames. You see enough awakenings and that's the conclusion you get! With information suppressed..." He leans forward and sighs. "And Kray was at the heart of that. Which probably isn't so surprising."

He shrugs again and plants his hands on his hips. She looks a little better and that's his goal so he keeps talking. "...He is way more than he ever presented himself as but if you know what to look for really was all there." Galo frowns as he lets his head fall.

"The hand movements. Body language. Damn, I feel like an idiot." He shakes his head then and goes. "So that's the whole deal there! I could give you this big history lesson if that will make it seem less like some crazy mess!" Galo grins then he sobers a little and his bright intensity dials back visibly until there's just the light of it in his eyes as he says, "and you don't have to talk about your stuff if you don't want to. I'm not gonna pry or ask. I'll just keep it to myself."

He lifts up a fist with an added, "But if anyone tries to pull that gun torture again I'll put them out."

Edited (wrong icon) 2020-08-21 00:11 (UTC)

There were a lot of things that Galo said that made his world seem a little less crazy. Still.... crazy, in terms of what she considers normal, but it made its own brand of sense. A different world with different rules, but the rules had their own consistency, and people still acted like people.

Her thoughts are interrupted with his reminder about... what he had seen of her own memories. Her breath hitches for a moment.

The idea of telling him to simply keep everything to himself is tempting. But he couldn't forget, not for real, and the things he knew were already enough to make him a target. This was a case where knowing half the truth was just as dangerous as knowing the full truth.

And knowing more might.... help. If he already knew enough to be dangerous, then knowing more would be beneficial. It was a balance of risk versus reward, where the risk factor was already maximized.

"If this is like last time, I get the feeling that we don't get to leave until we've talked enough." To be honest, that sentence was an excuse. But it was important to Haibara that she at least play the role well. Especially given all the grief she gives Kudo-kun. "And to be frank, you already know enough to put you in danger, and put me in danger. Even I'm not so heartless to keep you in the dark when the danger is already present."

Deep breath. She's less.... freaking out. She's made a decision, that's the important part. "My real name is Shiho Miyano. I developed a drug for a criminal organization, which has the unintended side effect of age regression in a small number of cases. I used it to escape from them after I refused to cooperate." Small pause. "The form you saw in that last memory is what I really look like."

This is probably deeply surprising, given her perfect cover as a normal child.

Galo stares at her. She does look like a kid but she hasn't talked like one to him or in the memories. "You know, I thought it was more along the lines of you passing yourself off at someone else. But the whole voice business in the first memory makes more sense now." He drops to the ground, folding his legs under him.

"That's some crazy shit." He says and shakes his head, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. "And I think you're right. We're not getting out of here until we talk all this through." She still sounds like she's freaking out. "...would have been easier for you to tell me to keep quiet and not say anything." He studies her face and says, "So thanks."

Looks like the Matoi Lio made for him might get some use after all. "Anyway, you made this drug. ...refused them for some reason. Why did you refuse? Then used it to escape. I'm assuming they thought to put you down after you made it?"

...Deep into the heart of the issue. This part is painful, and obviously so from her voice - difficult for a different reason than the other memories or admissions.

"My sister worked for them as well. She was working under an agreement that they would release me once she had accomplished enough. But they killed her instead." It's probably obvious that she cared for her sister, just from the way her voice shakes in recollection.

"I refused to cooperate with them without at least... at least knowing why. But they didn't have a real answer for me. They handcuffed me and left me while they waited for confirmation from further up. They were going to kill me as soon as they got it, and I figured if I was going to die anyway, I'd might as well take the chance." A slightly more cold, clinical tone takes over. "Apoptoxin-4869 killed everybody who took it, except in extremely rare cases, where it caused... this, instead. I took a gamble and that's how I escaped."

One more piece slips into place. He can see the bigger picture now and he doesn't like it. Had they resonated because they both have been used for who knows how long? Kray's betrayal is still fresh in his mind, the memories only dragged it back to the surface when he'd been content not to think about it at all.

Right beside it are her memories, spinning together like a cold wind and spelling out a tragedy. One he'd seen nearly play out before. He rests his hands on his thighs, "You did what you had to." His voice is quieter, matter of fact. "Surviving isn't a crime."

He closes his eyes and nods. "I got the picture now. Thanks for clearing that up." He looks down at the ground. "Kray's Burnish awakening destroyed my life then he pretended to save me. Didn't know and grew up building up an ideal that still is here even the man is...the way he is."

There's parallels to Heris and Aina but, the blade is sharper and the older sister had no choice at all. "He placed me in Burning Rescue before I got training hours just after I passed my tests." He lets her connect the dots. "He stopped pretending to give a shit when he finally had an excuse to torch my life again." Galo looks up and his face has slipped into serious expression, his eyes sharp like when he spots a fire. "Now we both know each other's past. Feels more equal, right?"

As she puts together the dots to Galo's own backstory in her head, she nods.

"It sounds like Kray built up a decent public persona, then. Had to do his underhandedness under the table, unless he had a good excuse otherwise." The crisis was an excuse to abandon humanity. Showing Galo the truth so Galo would object, and he could finally silence Galo for good. The only question she had was if it was all for show, or if he used it as a way to justify things to himself? Or somewhere in between.

Either way, she hoped he wouldn't show up. Somebody who knew how to sway people with deceit and words were the hardest kind of antagonist to deal with.

That's one of the reasons she hated dealing with Vermouth the most. That and Vermouth's singular burning hatred towards Haibara in particular, of course.

"But it does feel more equal, yes."

"From what I know, he's done it for years. He murdered the professor studying the Burnish and stole his research. The guy was burying some of it so Burnish wouldn't be hurt." Galo grimaces as the murder replays in his mind's eye. "Kray...had issues with that." As he so often has issues with things it seems.

"I think it happened right before he awoke too. But his whole 'savior of humanity thing' seems to have always been there." He says as he leans back and shakes his head. "But yeah, hope he never shows up. Don't want you guys to have to deal with that." Even if he would likely be the biggest target it just is a hassle.

And it still hurts.

Memory Cave

Ai Haibara | Galo

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M3

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