Yamaki's Plan

Just Observe

Yamaki repeatedly flicked the lid of his Zippo lighter. He stared at the computer jargon that danced across several monitors in front of him, reflected in his dark sunglasses. He wasn't actually reading the stream of symbols, he was thinking about a number of stressful problems. One of them concerned the Japanese Prime Minister, Isoto. A sigh resonated in his throat as he pulled up his secure-line email and read a letter from one of the Prime Minister's representatives. It was a letter requesting a report on the purpose and questionable necessity of Hypnos. The secret organization was listed simply as 'concerns national security'. The main building of Hypnos was a massive telecommunications tower monitoring all forms of communication coming in and out of Japan, including the Internet. But this was just a front for its real purpose. Much of the software in the higher levels of the tower was designed by Yamaki himself to track down the code-named 'Wild Ones'. What could he tell the Prime Minister, that Hypnos's real concern was locating and destroying digital monsters that had somehow forced their way out of the Internet into the real world? Monsters that he, Mitsuo Yamaki, had helped to create in the first place as a university project? The Prime Minister's stooges would have his team in straight jackets if that ever leaked out.

The other major problem that plagued his mind, were those damn kids. They were going to get themselves killed at the rate they were going, those stupid games they kept playing. He had tried to make them see that digimon were not pets, they were very real and very dangerous creatures, not some idiotic card game brought magically to life. Yamaki would have liked to just forget about those kids, but legally he couldn't. Hypnos was concerned with the protection against the Wild Ones, however unofficially. And as Yamaki was the head of Hypnos, that made him responsible for the safety of those children while they were 'playing' with the Digimon.

Yamaki thought for a while. Then he placed a headset around his skull and began to dictate a cock-and-bull story about international hackers to his computer. He ended the letter with his regards and emailed it directly to the Prime Minister's desk, so as not to give one of his many advisers a chance to scrutinize every single word.

He sat back and smiled at the plausible fantasy he had just sent. He then flicked a switch from 'comp' to 'sysopp1/2' and said into his mike "How goes the tracer program?"

"Tracer accuracy currently at 52 percent. Remaining download from NASA is 5 percent. Remaining download from IGS is 12 percent. We're still matching the DNA codes and signals to textual algorithms. Plus, we've run into a couple of bugs." Yamaki turned and looked up at Riley, who had given him the report.

"Of course it's got a couple bugs," he replied, "it's American. Since when has American software not had 'a couple of bugs' in it? Both of you get rid of those problems first, then get on to the algorithms," he called to the two system operators, suspended six feet above the ground surrounded by approximately six million dollars of equipment.

"Damn Americans. Don't know good software from boiled eggs," he muttered to himself.

10101010

"Whoa! America has all the best stuff," Takato moaned in envy. He pointed to the computer monitor in his room.

"America may actually have all the best stuff, but chances are it was made in China," Henry replied. Henry had gone over to Takato's house to help with a particularly boring maths assignment, but, much to Henry's annoyance, Takato had been easily side tracked due to a brand new high speed modem that Takato's Father had bought to help with school work. Partly from genuine curiosity but mostly to show off the speedy recovery of web pages, Takato had searched for Digimon Cards and discovered a series of cards that had been recently released only in America.

"Why does he still bother with cards? He's got the real thing sitting in his bedroom," remarked Terriermon, who was jumping up and down on Takato's bed, his huge ears were flopping wildly around him.

"Wow. And look at all these new modifier cards! I bet I could make some awesome combinations with those. Henry, look! If I mixed that one with that one... Ka-Pow!"

Terriermon stopped jumping and exchanged bemused glances with Henry.

"Are you one hundred percent certain he's from the same planet as you?" the digimon asked his tamer. Henry shoved his hands into his orange jacket and shrugged.

"Hey! I could order a whole pack for just thirty dollars!" Takato's face seemed to glow at this prospect.

"You know how much that is in Yen?" asked Henry, a hint of amusement in his voice. Takato thought about this then brought up the calculator program and entered in the figures. Adjusting his goggles on top of his head, he stared at the screen for a while, then:

"What! I'm not paying that much for cards!" he exclaimed in rage.

"So much for unfaltering desire," Henry muttered dryly. He glanced around the room then added, "Hey, where is Guilmon?"

"He's eating. He's hungry," said Takato. All thoughts of costs were forgotten as he returned to the Internet to look at cards. Terriermon's eyes grew wide at the mention of the word 'hungry'. Without explanation he quietly took a sharpened pencil from Takato's desk and jumped into the waste paper basket. Henry believed there was a point to his partner's strange behaviour and asked what he was doing in the bin.

"I'm hiding," Terriermon said simply.

"Why," Henry said just as simply. Terriermon poked his head out from beneath a mass of discarded paper.

"Because the last time Guilmon was hungry, he tried to swallow me!" Henry gave the small digimon a disbelieving look. Terriermon noticed this and added:

"Well next time he gets scared at night, how about you go and keep him company in that creepy little hut!" and with that he buried himself in the paper. Henry turned back to Takato, who was now close to drooling on the keyboard.

"I thought that those cards were too expensive," he said.

"Cost... irrelevant. Need... cards."

"Look, we really should get to this assignment, its due in two weeks time and-" Henry was interrupted by a series of beeping noises made by his digivice. Takato's began to do the same.

"Trouble," said Takato.

Twenty minutes later Takato, Guilmon, Henry and Terriermon stood in a run down section of Shinjuku West, facing a confused and angry Mammothmon. The power lines it was caught up in were causing it obvious pain which made it even angrier.

"Big," Henry breathed, "why is it always big?"

10101010

The Tracer program had been first thought of by the International Guild of Scientists, in an attempt to easily locate and protect endangered species. The idea was that a special satellite would be able to locate any species of mammal, bug, fish, bird, and plant by scanning the planet for specific DNA codes. NASA had already developed and launched the satellite with success, but ran into trouble with designing the actual program to run the global scans. IGS and NASA both agreed that the best man for creating such complicated software was Mitsuo Yamaki, who was easily persuaded with two million dollars. He was sent the original, failed, version of the program that the USA had worked on for six months, and had corrected most of the bugs while watching an episode of "Lost". He had then handed the program over to his chief system operators at Hypnos, Tally and Riley.

Tracer accuracy at 61 percent.

10101010

"Sir! We have an unforeseen Bio-emergence in Shinjuku West," cried Tally over the alarm bells. Riley deactivated the alarm and said:

"Activate Yuggoth program, Sir?"

"Yes. No... Wait!" an idea danced along the horizon of Yamaki's mind. "Just let it be."

"But that thing is over 10 feet tall, someone is going to notice it sooner or later," said Tally in distress.

"Plus its final connection with the Internet is about to fail. After that, we can't launch Yuggoth," Riley added. Yamaki just stared intently at the live satellite feed he had pulled up onto his monitor. There was a very tense silence. Riley broke it.

"Yamaki, someone is going to see that thing!"

"Like a couple of dumb kids, I know, now shut up!" he yelled, and turned back to the video. Sure enough, he saw Takato, Henry and their digimon in the corner of the screen ready to engage the mammothmon in battle. Yamaki slipped a recording disc into a drive, and then ordered a strike force to enter the area in case something went wrong and the kids got into trouble.

"And you must not be seen. By anyone," he ordered to the strike captain. He sat back in his chair and continued to watch the satellite feed.

"Sir, this is extremely risky," said one of his system operators.

"I am aware of the risks. Now just watch. Observe. We might learn something." For ten minutes the three of them watched the three digimon fight. Now that he was watching closely, Yamaki realized that those kids knew what they were doing, tactics wise. Then Tally said:

"What's that boy doing?" Yamaki glanced over at Henry.

"Zoom in on the Chinese kid," he said. They all watched as Henry swiped a card through some sort of reader. What on earth?

"It's a digimon card," answered Tally, "My niece collects them."

"A card..." whispered Yamaki.

"I didn't know you had a sister," Riley took off her holo-goggles and looked around at Tally.

"We aren't that close," Tally replied. An annoyed Yamaki wondered how they could be chatting at a time like this. He removed his sunglasses and turned to them both.

"Save the general chit-chat for the six o'clock coffee break thank you very much, we have work to do!" he yelled. He turned back to the screen and said, "Wait, zoom out. Zoom out." The small digimon had changed. It was bigger and seemed a lot more powerful than before. Plus, it had machine guns where its hands should be. Another ten minutes passed before the battle ended and the mammothmon was destroyed. During the fight, the red, dinosaurian digimon had changed to. Yamaki rewound the disk to when Henry had swiped the card, and then the rabbit-thing had grown. He watched the same scene over a few times, and thought.

"Sir?" Riley asked quietly, "What now?" Yamaki looked at her for a few seconds and said:

"Continue with work on the tracer." Into his head mike he said, "Captain, return to base. Take no other action." He stared again at the changing creature. How did it do that? It was like evolving. The original digimon in the 70's had been programmed with defensive software, but this was unlike anything he had ever expected. Programs, or even viruses, did not just evolve or mutate no matter how stressful or difficult the situation was. Not without some sort of user interference. Then it clicked. The kid had swiped the card before it had changed. The card had caused the digimon to evolve. Like a system update. A broad smile spread across his face.

"Tally! I want a class D investigatory team at that site, immediately! Highly classified. I want no civilians, no cops, definitely no government officials, and absolutely no press; I don't care who they say they are with. No goddamn paparazzi. Riley! Can you put together something that will reverse or prevent a system update? It needs to be inter-world transferable, like yuggoth. But it needs to work outside the parameters of a digital field. You got that?" Both answered in the affirmative. "Good." He sat down and took out his lighter.

"Sir, the investigatory team want to know exactly what they're looking for," asked Tally.

Yamaki lit a cigarette. "DNA."