The Hidden Danger of the Akasha Terminal
As for Cointreau's report, Gin couldn't be bothered to reply. He simply fired off a text telling Kir that she was no longer needed for whatever came next.
Mizunashi Rena stared at the message that had just arrived, and a faint sense of unease crept over her.
She had assumed that with Gin's paranoia, even after she reported that Noah's Ark had destroyed itself, he would never take her word for it. If anything, she'd expected him to order her to find a way to sneak in and verify the claim with her own eyes. And considering the level of artificial intelligence the Sindora Group had displayed, along with the projects it had underway, she genuinely didn't believe the Organization would simply let the matter slide.
Had they assigned someone else to investigate, then? But why go around her? Logically speaking, she had already made acquaintance with Ningguang and Ganyu — surely running the investigation through her would have been the most convenient arrangement?
Was he suspicious of her, or was there simply someone better suited to the task?
The more Mizunashi Rena turned it over, the more she leaned toward the latter. Gin had been the one to entrust her with the Noah's Ark matter in the first place, which suggested he didn't doubt her. That left the second possibility. And the longer she dwelled on it, the more unfathomable the Organization seemed — its hands reaching into every corner, everywhere at once.
Meanwhile, having just finished watching Ningguang's interview on Haido TV, Conan's expression had grown unusually grave.
He had never imagined that practically the moment Ningguang secured ownership of the Sindora Group, she would already be on the verge of delivering results. Which meant she had truly had her eye on Sindora long before any of this came to light.
Conan watched as Ran and Mouri Kogoro excitedly discussed the Akasha Terminal's features, and said nothing. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to the project Ningguang had poured so much effort into than met the eye — that the Akasha Terminal was not nearly as innocent a device as a portable computer.
Just then, he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out: a message from Haibara, telling him to come by Professor Agasa's house. There was something she wanted to discuss.
"Ran-neechan, the Professor just told me he's got a new game over there. I'm staying at his place tonight, so don't wait up!"
With that, he bolted out of the Mouri Detective Agency.
"Huh?! Okay, Conan — be careful on the way! And remember to get up on time for school tomorrow!" By the time Mouri Ran processed what had happened, all she could see was Conan's back as he raced out the door, and she just barely managed to get the words out.
"Honestly, that boy," Ran murmured, watching the wide-open front door. "He's got school tomorrow, and here he is running off to play video games. I just hope he doesn't stay up too late."
Professor Agasa's house.
The moment Conan arrived, he went straight to Agasa and demanded to know why Haibara had suddenly called him over. Had something gone wrong? Had something happened?
Agasa was completely at a loss. He had no idea what was going on either. All he could say was that he and Ai had just been watching Miss Ningguang's interview together, and when it ended, Haibara's face had suddenly turned serious — and then she'd sent Conan a message. For the specifics, Conan would have to ask her.
"So where is Haibara?" Conan asked impatiently.
She was the one who'd summoned him here, and now that he'd actually shown up, where was she?
"Ahem... well, she's... she's in the bath right now..." Agasa scratched the back of his head with an awkward cough, coming to her defense. "She probably didn't expect you to get here so fast, Shinichi, so that's why..."
Conan was speechless. "......"
So he wasn't supposed to arrive on time?
Left with no alternative, Conan settled onto the sofa to wait for Haibara to finish her bath. Fortunately, it wasn't long before she emerged.
"Haibara," he said quickly, "you called me over so suddenly — what's this about? Is it the Organization?"
Haibara rolled her eyes. "No."
Was the Organization all he ever thought about? Was it truly impossible for him to think about anything else?
"Oh. Then what is it?" The instant Conan heard it had nothing to do with the Black Organization, the excitement drained from his voice, his tone flattening in obvious disappointment.
"......It's about Miss Ningguang's Akasha Terminal." Watching Conan's reaction swing from one extreme to the other, Haibara rolled her eyes yet again before finally getting to the reason she'd called him over.
At the mention of the very thing that had been on his mind all day, Conan looked up at her with renewed interest.
Paying his reaction no mind, Haibara pressed on. "Do you remember how Miss Ningguang described the Akasha Terminal in the interview?"
"Of course I do." Though he couldn't quite see why she was bringing it up, Conan repeated what he'd heard. "It's a portable device that handles information gathering, transmission, and communication all in one — something like that. What about it? Is there a problem?"
"That's exactly the problem." Haibara sighed and continued. "Back when I was with the Organization, there was a codenamed member who took network security and information very seriously, so I ended up learning a fair amount about that field myself. I know the Organization has always prioritized cybersecurity — every one of their bases runs on an internal, closed network, precisely to prevent any information from leaking out."
"Now consider the Akasha Terminal. Once it hits the market, if it works as well as Miss Ningguang claims it does, practically no one will be able to resist such a convenient tool. And once the majority of people are using it, the moment something goes wrong with the Terminal, every one of those users becomes an open book to Ningguang and her people."
Haibara drew a deep breath. "Conan, you know they have some kind of connection to the Black Organization. We don't know how deep it runs yet — but if my suspicion is correct, that bodes very ill for us."
Seeing Conan's expression grow darker and darker, Haibara relented and added a few qualifications. "Of course, I may be alarmist. After all, if I could think of this, plenty of others surely can too. Once the Terminal officially launches, people are bound to inspect it — if there were a genuine flaw, it couldn't stay hidden. And pulling off what I described would be extraordinarily difficult. An ordinary AI simply couldn't support computing on that scale, and there's currently no efficient, stable method for transmitting that much data simultaneously, either."
(This part is made up — please just ignore any errors or holes in the logic...)
"So, at most, the Akasha Terminal might have some information-leakage issues — but the problem probably isn't as catastrophic as I first imagined. It all comes down to how far today's technology can go, and how ambitious Miss Ningguang really is." That was Haibara's final verdict.
By the time Conan had heard her out, his face was still grave — but considerably less so than before.
He considered for a moment, then turned to Professor Agasa, who had been listening quietly alongside him. On this subject, the Professor's knowledge surely ran deeper than Haibara's.
"Professor... to do what Haibara described — to actually pull that off — wouldn't the only thing capable of it be Noah's Ark?"