Detective Conan: Midori

CH 9: SNIPPER SHOOTER

It was Golden Week and as per usual, [Name], Ran, and Sonoko went out together. Before, Shinichi would come with them most times. But ever since his little trip, none of the girls had seen him. Not that they minded too much considering that when he came, something would usually happen that interrupted their outing.

Plus, he would not shut up about Sherlock Holmes during the trips.

Around four, [Name] and Ran said goodbye to Sonoko and headed for the detective agency. To their surprise, Conan, who had gone out to play with his classmates, was already back. Not only was he back but his face was buried in a piece of paper filled with scribbles.

"What are you doing back so early, Conan-kun?"

"This brat is causing trouble again." scoffed Mouri and then explained to them what had happened. Apparently, while the Detective Boys were playing by a river, they saw someone shooting a balloon tied to a remote toy boat from an abandoned building meters away.

It wasn't an easy shot, but that man did it easily. The problem is that Conan suspected the man had been kidnapped since those surrounding him were pointing guns his way and that the shot he had taken was a test to check if he had the skills they needed for a job they would force upon him.

The question was, what was he being tested for? And what, or rather who, was the target of those people?

By the time Conan had reached the building, those people were long gone but he had found a calculator with a row of numbers written on the screen. It was those numbers that he had been trying to decipher, believing that they had been left as a message by the hostage.

Having heard the whole story, [Name] turned to face the boy dumbfounded, "Your luck to attract trouble is really impressive. I feel sorry for your future girlfriend."

"You should be feeling sorry for yourself first. How many of your dates were ruined by a certain someone's great luck before?" teased Ran, her friend shooting her an embarrassed glare, "Those weren't dates!"

Conan didn't dare look at them, his face steaming as he turned back to the numbers on the paper, 3135134162, and continued writing lines and circles around them as he tried to understand what they might mean.

But no matter how much he tried to figure it out, Conan couldn't understand what kind of message the snipper had left. "It's hopeless! I can't figure this out!"

"Of course you can't. There is no message." said Mouri ruthlessly for the hundredth time, barely glancing away from his magazine to the boy, "Someone just forgot their calculator, that's all. Ttaku, I can't believe you called Megure Keibu out there during Golden Week."

"Otousan!" Ran sent the man a glare before sitting beside the boy, "Say, if that person really was forced to do target practice, and then left you a message, all I can think of is..."

"The time or place where the real shooting will take place, or the victim's name..." finished Conan, already having thought of all those possibilities.

"Or a hint about where he's being held. People play code games on their pagers all the time. Number games." Ran held much more confidence for Conan than her father so she was quite eager to help him find solutions.

[Name] sat on Conan's right side and leaned to look at the numbers, "This little genius probably already tried that and the more complicated ones along with it."

"You know what is possible. Since 3135134 can also be read as a couple of Japanese names, which means the victims are going to be 31-san and 51-san. Haha, Hihihi!"