The image was beautiful.
Koushiro glanced up at it for what must have been the hundredth time. He was busy. He should be focused on what he was doing. At least, that's what he told himself as he forced his eyes back to his laptop. Lines upon lines of script scrolled endlessly on the screen, driven by the ceaseless tik-tik-tak of his fingers on the keyboard. In a separate window, lines of data in the code of the digital world blurred by undisturbed. His digivice hummed against his leg where it was connected to the computer like a tiny external hard drive. It had seen about as much rest as he had in the past four years.
"Koushiro," a voice buzzed from his computer. "The coordinates 156,27 should be 146,27."
He mumbled an acknowledging response, and reversed the script until he found the coordinate error. With a window change and a quick motion of his fingers, he made the correction. His eyes flicked up to the image again. The dimensions had changed, albeit slightly.
"Thanks, Tentomon."
The image, which was a rip in the fabric of the real world for the moment, was one of a set of sixteen that currently littered the globe, and one of three that were not yet stabilized. They reflected pieces of the digital world, so much like the ones that had appeared shortly after the first time they had defeated Vamdemon. Once stabilized, they had no ability to interact with the real world; harmless mirages awaiting the finale of the project. Koushiro had gone around the world to personally perform the stabilizations himself. Tentomon, Miyako, and Ken helped him from the digital world, correcting coordinates, making sure the environment was neutral, and sometimes poking their heads where they didn't belong just to be doubly sure they weren't near anything sensitive.
Miyako's prematurely triumphant voice burst from his speakers. "Bingo! We're in the green!"
Koushiro licked his lips, and ran his fingers through his hair. It was getting long again.
Tik-tik-tak.
Phantom sparks erupted from the sky. The image warped as though it might explode, but Koushiro remained seated. For no reason they'd been able to decipher, the images always reacted with bursts of energy and distortion. But this one, as all of them eventually had, settled down into something as immaterial as a rainbow. The edges rippled quietly and evenly, like the surface of a pond. The stabilization was a success.
Koushiro released the breath he'd been holding to the sound of Miyako, Hawkmon, and Wormmon celebrating in the background.
Ken was the only one remained calm enough to speak. "What's next?"
"One in Odaiba and another off the coast of Hokkaido, at the Kuril Isles."
"Saving the best for last?"
A nostalgic smile spread on Koushiro's face. "Yeah."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow then."
They exchanged reminders not to over-exert themselves on their travels, and Koushiro closed his laptop.
The digivice plugged into the side went quiet. Koushiro disconnected it, holding it tightly in his hand. He looked up at the mirage, shimmering harmlessly in the atmosphere over the caldera of Mt. Aso, and his smile widened to a grin. He closed his laptop and fell idly back into the grass. The opportunity to relax and be proud of their achievement had become rare as the project sped towards its close. Particularly in the past four weeks. They had opened up the sixteen ports less than two months ago, and as much as they'd have liked to take at least ninety days to stabilize them, nobody wanted the unstable objects occupying their airspace. So the digidestined had cut it to sixty. It would have been less if possible, but the ports were out in the middle of nowhere by design. Koushiro had been working for mere hours, but getting to the particular location on the rim of far side of the caldera, away from civilization and the still-active Mt. Naka where there was no way to arrive unless he hiked had taken him half a day. The shortest trek yet. Despite his aching muscles, he was bubbling over with joy. The sky was full of bright clouds, the sunlight was warm, the wind was cool, and they were close. So very close.
A shadow fell over him. "This is new. I'm not sure I've ever seen you so giddy over nothing."
He looked up, and saw Jyou standing there with a twinkle in his eye and two mildly cool cans of tea in his hands. "What do you mean 'nothing'? We're two days away from completion. This is big, Jyou!"
Jyou smiled widely, and Koushiro couldn't help laughing. Time and adulthood hadn't done anything for Jyou. He looked even more harmless than when they first met. Over the course of the project, Jyou had been Koushiro's assistant when college wasn't keeping him busy. When it was, they gave him the kind of work that was important but could be easily moved around in case of time constraints. When they'd come to the final stabilization phase, Jyou had taken a break after graduation instead of moving directly to graduate level studies, just to travel with Koushiro and watch the dream come true. However, Jyou had a much more important responsibility than just observing.
"Did you manage to work out the supervision issue we were having?"
Jyou paused midway though handing Koushiro the tea. "I thought you were supposed to work that out."
The blood drained from Koushiro's face. It must've been visible, because it was Jyou's turn to laugh. He was no less wimpy, but his sense of humor had improved over the years. If such bad jokes could be called improvement. Koushiro took the tea and gulped it down while looking pointedly away from Jyou.
"Easy, Koushiro. I really did handle it, and it worked out nicely."
Jyou pulled a tube out of his bag—the one thing that hadn't changed; he was always prepared—and pulled a gigantic rolled map from it. It was marked up in a messy, unintelligible fashion, but the margins were full of neatly written notes and a key that somehow made everything understandable. Jyou set rocks on the edges to keep it from rolling up, and squatted down to explain.
"As you know, we got the food and water situation all sorted. Digidestined from the nearest cities, marked with an X as you see here, have been keeping an eye on everyone. I'll be staying at the Kuril anchor, with enough canned food to last unless something goes wrong. The real problem was there just weren't enough people to trust with this on such short notice. If you count all the digidestined we know who are seasoned enough to handle any emergencies, there's fourteen with Michael and Wallace included. You're head of stabilization, and Miyako, Ken, and I have been with you the whole way, so we don't count. It would never work."
"The suspense is killing me, Jyou."
Jyou cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed at his own rambling. "Michael and Betamon are on the two sides in the Yukon, and Wallace and Terriermon are on the two sides in Colorado. Daisuke and V-mon are in Brazil, with Centalmon on the other side. Iori and Armadimon are in Argentina, with Andromon on the other side. Yamato and Gabumon went here, to Greenland. A Yukidarumon is watching the other side." He looked up at Koushiro, with his finger against the Antarctic Peninsula. "I got a group of Mojyamon to oversee the digital world side, but..."
Koushiro nodded understandingly. "Even we ended up stabilizing that anchor with unrelated bystanders present. It's too big of a risk to be isolated out there."
"Right. Let's see... The Tibetan and Indian anchors are very close to one another, so Mimi and Palmon are watching both and the Gekomon are helping them out from the digital world. Sora and Piyomon are on the west coast of Australia with the Yokomon from Gear Savannah on the other side. The Russian digidestined Miyako connected with before are watching over both sides of the anchor on Morzhovets Island." He paused, tracing his fingers idly toward Africa and the UK while he scanned the rest of the map to be sure he hadn't missed anything. "Sorry, it's a lot to keep track of."
Koushiro grinned over the last of his tea. "Getting senile?"
Jyou ignored him. "Taichi and Hikari are in Africa. They're matched with their partners up on the two sides of the Kilimanjaro and Madagascar anchors."
"Kilimanjaro is one thing; there are people everywhere around that mountain. Madagascar isn't as dangerous as say, the Australian wilderness, but still." He scowled at the markings. "They should both have their partners with them. That's the kind of recklessness I'd expect from Taichi, but Hikari?"
"For better or worse, she's becomes a little more like Taichi these past few years." Jyou began to roll up the map. "Takeru is in Spain with Patamon. You'd never believe me if I told you who they're working with. Miyako will be coming here to Kumamoto to supervise this anchor. I'll be staying in Hokkaido and you and Ken will be on your own for the one in Odaiba."
Koushiro couldn't resist. "Who's working with Takeru and Patamon?"
Jyou paused in the middle of putting the map back into a cardboard tube. "Hmm... I seem to have forgotten." He sported a mischievous smirk, more like Gomamon's than his own. "Maybe I'm getting senile."
Koushiro sighed, graciously accepting the results of his earlier jab. He collected his things, and got up to follow Jyou. It was a long way back to the Kumamoto Prefecture. As curious as he was, he would need to save his breath until they got back to the road. He couldn't recall anyone really outrageous who might be helping out in Spain. He looked up, and Jyou was grinning at him. He grinned back, despite himself. Ten years and a grueling project that consumed the last four of them had done nothing to their friendship but make it stronger. They were getting older, and more serious, and it felt good that the little jokes still mattered so much. He took a glance back at the mirage hovering quietly in the sky over the caldera. It was the dream of the digidestined, so close to life. The result of Project Download that they began on their own, funded on their own, worked through in the face of endless frustrations on their own, and would soon end on their own.
It was beautiful.
Notes:
I'd received several reviews on the previous version involving confusion regarding Japanese vs English naming confusion, but never considered what or whether I should do something about that. A thank you to Teraunce who provided the logical answer: a simple name conversion guide. I may do this for digimon as they appear in later chapters, but the only digimon with exceptionally different names are Vamdemon (Myotismon) and Tailmon (Gatomon).
Taichi- Tai
Hikari- Kari
Yamato- Matt
Takeru- TK
Koushiro- Izzy
Jyou- Joe
Sora Takenouchi as is
Mimi Tachikawa as is
Miyako- Yolei
Daisuke- Davis
Iori- Cody
Ken Ichijouji as is