A new and unfamiliar kind of quiet had settled over the hotel suite. The frantic energy of the initial shock had dissipated, leaving behind the heavy, settled ash of grief and bewilderment. The team, this impossible collection of legendary minds, was adrift, their ship shattered, their captain a traitor, and their destination lost in a fog of madness.
It was Hercule Poirot who broke the silence. He had spent the last hour meticulously rearranging the sugar cubes on the coffee table, a small, desperate act of imposing order on a universe that had lost all meaning. He finally pushed the completed pyramid away, his hands steady, his eyes once again holding the sharp, analytical light of the great detective. He had found his method again, his anchor in the storm.
"It will not do," he announced, his voice clear and firm, cutting through the gloom. "To sit here, to wallow in our defeat… it is an indulgence. We are faced not with one enemy, but with three. A three-headed dragon. It is time we decided which head to attack first."
He stood and began to pace, his familiar, energetic stride returning. "We have Kira, the god on the mountain. We have B.B., the artist in the asylum. And now… we have L, the devil we knew." He turned to the others, his gaze sweeping over their tired faces. "We are devastated, oui. But we are not finished. We will divide our labours. We will hunt them all."
Captain Hastings, who had been staring blankly at the wall, finally stirred. A single, nagging detail had been bothering him, a loose thread in the tapestry of the previous day's horror. "Poirot," he said, his voice hesitant. "L had a gun. A modern pistol. He was a professional. When he shot… why only Connor? We were all there. Watson and Holmes were even closer to him. If he meant to betray us all, why not finish the job?"
The question hung in the air, a simple observation of profound significance.
Poirot stopped his pacing, a thoughtful expression on his face. "An excellent question, mon ami. A question of method. For a man like L to leave witnesses… it is illogical. Unless the witnesses were not his target." He began to theorize, his mind whirring back to life. "Perhaps he knew Connor was the greatest immediate threat to his escape? Perhaps his betrayal was a thing of sudden impulse, and his nerve failed him after the first act? Non, that is not the L we have observed. He is a creature of cold, absolute calculation."
He sighed, shaking his head. "But that is a puzzle of human nature, a question of a man's soul. I shall leave the matter of L to Miss Marple; her expertise in such things is, I confess, unparalleled. My own mind requires a more… structured problem." He looked at Holmes. "I shall take Kira. Of all our foes, he is the only one with a predictable pattern. He has a philosophy. And a man with a philosophy, however warped, is a man who can be understood."
While the men carved up the dragon, Isabelle Dubois was making her report to Miss Marple in the quiet of her adjoining room. She recounted the events at the warehouse with a clinical, professional detachment, detailing L's betrayal, the shocking death of the android, and the former leader's escape.
Miss Marple listened patiently, her hands still, her gaze fixed on the young woman's face. Isabelle was a model agent—composed, efficient, her report flawless. And yet… there was something. A flicker of something in her eyes, a tension in her posture that seemed just a little too pronounced. Miss Marple had seen that look before, in the faces of people who were carrying a secret so heavy it was a physical burden. For a fleeting moment, a thought, as unwelcome as it was distinct, passed through her mind: the girl is hiding something. But it was gone as quickly as it came, dismissed as the fanciful notion of a tired old woman.
"Thank you, Isabelle, dear," she said when the report was finished. "That is all very… clear."
After the agent had departed, Miss Marple was left alone with the impossible puzzle of L. She tried to apply her own method, to think of him as a person. Where could he have gone? A man on the run needs shelter, resources, friends. But L had none of these things, not in the conventional sense. She tried to picture his past, his family, a childhood home. The canvas was utterly, completely blank. Nobody knew anything about him. He had simply… appeared, a ghost from the ether. To predict where a man will go, one must first understand where he has been. And with L, there was no 'been'.
Her mind turned to the central, baffling question. Why shoot Connor? Had L discovered some treachery? Had the android, for all his programmed logic, been compromised? It seemed wildly improbable. L, for all his secrecy, was a collaborator. If he had discovered a traitor in their midst, his logical move would have been to share that information, to use the combined intellect of the group to corner the threat. To act alone, so violently and so publicly… it was the act of a man who had been pushed beyond the limits of reason. An act of desperation. Or, perhaps, an act of something else entirely.
In his own corner of the suite, a space he had converted into a chaotic whirlwind of papers, maps, and digital displays, Sherlock Holmes was pursuing the one tangible thread he had left. B.B.
"To understand the artist, Watson," he declared, his eyes burning with a renewed, feverish intensity, "we must first understand his materials. And his only known material, the only person confirmed to have been in his orbit, is the dead woman, Akane Tanaka."
He had spent the morning plumbing the depths of the internet, a tool he was now wielding with a terrifying proficiency. He was not interested in her criminal affiliations; he was interested in the woman she had been before she became a monster. And he had found her.
"She was not always a cultist, Watson," he said, gesturing to a file on his screen. "Far from it. She was a prodigy. A student of fine art at the Tokyo University of the Arts, specializing in aesthetic theory. Her final thesis, submitted shortly before her first documented psychological breakdown, is a work of disturbing genius." He brought the document up on the screen. The title alone was chilling: 'The Aesthetics of Atrocity: Finding Beauty in the Framework of Human Cruelty.'
"Good heavens," I murmured, reading a highlighted passage. It spoke of murder as the ultimate form of performance art, a final, irrevocable statement of an artist's dominance over their subject.
"Precisely," Holmes said. "She was a brilliant, but profoundly disturbed, young woman. She suffered a full psychotic break following the sudden death of her entire family in a house fire, an event the police ruled as accidental. It was after her release from a psychiatric institution that she fell off the grid, only to re-emerge as the high priestess of B.B.'s little cult." He looked at me, his expression grim. "B.B. did not find a common criminal to lead his followers, Watson. He found a broken artist, a kindred spirit, and he gave her madness a purpose."
While the ghosts of the past were being dissected in the hotel, the future was being rebuilt. An unmarked van pulled up to the loading dock of Apex Tokyo Industries, a gleaming monolith of glass and steel that was a world leader in advanced robotics and cybernetics. A man in a dark suit and sunglasses, one of Near's agents, stepped out carrying a single, heavy-duty briefcase.
He was met by a nervous-looking Japanese contractor. The agent handed him a high-capacity pen drive. "The core programming and memory files," the agent said, his voice flat. "Is the chassis ready?"
"Yes, yes, of course," the contractor stammered, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and fear. "The biocomponents, the blue blood, the silicone integument… everything is prepared. The manufacturing suite is sealed, as per your instructions."
The contractor hesitated, then lowered his voice. "If you don't mind me asking, sir… this technology.It's… it's world-changing. Why is it not being published? Why all the secrecy?"
The American agent turned his head slowly, and though his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, the contractor felt a chill run down his spine. "You are paid to build, not to ask questions," he said, his voice dangerously cold. "Answer the question. Is it ready?"
"Yes, sir," the contractor squeaked, taking a step back. "It is ready." He couldn't help but add, his voice a near whisper, "The rebuilding process… to be held in a secure facility, overseen by your men… it is very intimidating. But," he admitted, his scientific curiosity overriding his fear, "it is also damn interesting."
The American agent ignored him. He turned away and spoke into his wrist communicator. "Near. This is Gevanni. The package has been delivered. The cradle is ready." He listened for a moment, then nodded. "Understood. We are green for resurrection."