Chapter One: Rest Your Wings
The young woman stepped onto the train platform with another earth-shaking yawn. The sun wasn't up yet, the air was still a little chilly too. There hadn't even been a chance for some morning coffee.
In other words, it was early, way too early for her to be up. On the upside, she had made it before the rush on the train station, before the time where the train station would be crowded with business workers and unmarried, overworked people and the students taking extra classes. Of course, by the time she was close to her destination, she'd likely be at a packed train station with no respect for anything like boundaries, but…
It was all gonna work out! It always did!
Aiba Ami pressed her lips together to fight back another yawn, tapping her foot on the tile. She resisted the urge to check the interface, instead tightening the goggle strap around her red hair. No need to be one of those kids her papa had once complained about, always on their 'digivice'*. (Her parents came from a time just before the commonplace device. Gosh they were old! Would be nice to go on it though, she was pretty bored.
"Maybe five more minutes…" She spun in a circle, amusing herself with the funny looks of the few people up this early. She wished she had gotten some donuts from the convenience store. That would have waken her up.
Then there was a gentle beep in her ears. A message. She paused, tapped behind her ear. The screen pulled up with a little blue creature waggling its head back and forth while sitting in a little white square. "U on ur way yet?"
Ami giggled. Did Bluebox ever sleep? "Not yet," she typed back. "Train's not here."
The returned message was an exasperated emoji and his avatar's head shook again. Not that she knew BB very well, but he was annoyed he couldn't be there to help move… wherever it was her mother's apartment was located at. She never remembered the exact block. Couldn't be helped, really. One of the old rules of the internet was to not give out your address and to meet in public places. She doubted the second one would work anymore. The internet was nothing if not public.
Ami replied with a smiling face. "At least my boxes are already there."
"Small comfort, lol. No one's going to be there to help you out."
She giggled again. He was such a hen. He was worse with Akino, really. Then again, she seemed to need it. "I'll be fine! Most of my stuff is light."
"If you say so."
"I do!" She peered to look for the train. Were those little spotlights in the distance? She sure hoped they were. This was getting chilly! As Ami made to straighten up, she pulled down her yellow shirt and… there it was.
Pale blue cracks, easy to miss if you didn't see them the first time, spiraled out like snowflakes under a microscope. They were sunk into the train tracks and spreading across the platform. Ami watched them spread, watching the data flex outward and upward. She watched with a mild curiosity but little more.
Not for the first time, she wondered where that data went, or it was data at all.
Not for the first time, she stopped thinking about it. No one else saw them, so no point in making a fuss.
The train ran them over in the next moment, hiding the blue from her eyes. Not that it made a difference. She would see it again. She always did. She may even see it under her seat. Speaking of which! Ami hurried to sit down, sighing in relief.
"Made it!"
Bluebox messaged her back a few minutes later, obstructing her view of the scenery and cracking clouds. "About time."
"You're so impatient," she joked. "It's not even you moving."
"I hate trains."
Ami let out a giggle, ignoring the looks of her few fellow passengers. It wasn't her fault they didn't have anyone to talk to! "You need to move to the countryside then, well, what's left of it."
"Or just walk." His avatar made an odd motion in the box, somehow ending up on his head. "Are you going on the chatroom tonight?"
"Yeah!" It was that or unpack the cooking utensils. That didn't sound half as fun as crashing on her bed at five in the morning.
"Good." A few minutes' pause. "Crap, I have to go. Uni shopping."
She gave him a sympathetic wink face. Been there, done that. At least he was going to get to do it with his parents. She had had to do it all herself. (Well, with the auto-carts too, but still!) Ami rubbed her eyes and grinned a little bit wider, slumping back in her seat.
The Odaiba train rumbled on away, a blue crack spreading over her head as she watched.
The other passengers didn't notice, not even when it turned purple.
Ami hit the living room floor with a relieved thump. Five hours later, her stuff was unpacked, her stuffed animals (hey, they were cute!) in their proper places, and the apartment was aired out and relatively dust free.
It didn't take away from the fact that her mother's old apartment was too big for her, but maybe she'd have friends over. Maybe! After all of the mess after high school graduation, she wanted that. Though it would probably take a while. Most of those people thought she was crazy now, but… well. Stuff happened.
For a moment, Ami dozed on the floor. Then she made herself get up and make some instant noodles. While they cooked, she slipped on yellow pajamas with a shoulder sag of relief. "Imma be sore tomorrow," she whined to no one in particular. Her Digivice chirped at her and she sighed. "Load up private chat number seven-eight-four please!" She wished she could take credit for the first seven hundred-eighty-three private chats, but at most, she was probably in twenty of them. Oh well.
'Chat loading,' chirped the device, and Ami giggled. Dictation chatting was the best, especially with noodles.
There was a sudden loud 'beep!' that sounded like her digivice had swallowed a gear. Ami jumped with a squawk, almost dropping her put them down and rested a hand over her thumping heart. "Jeez," she mumbled. "Silly email alerts... The v-volume's not supposed to be that high. P-Project please!"
Her television flickered on at the gentle prompt of her digivice, revealing a virtual envelope. It opened and a twitching robot with a double-sided cone for a head (she always thought of it as that white robot from that WALL-E movie). Its head waggled from side to side, a smiling emoticon in neon purple.
"ConGRATulations!" it squeaked. "MY name Is Navii~.You HAVE been CHOSEN for a fABUlouS priZe." The squeak warped as it spoke, making her ears ache.
Ami blinked. "I… what?"
It continued, not caring about her surprise (and fear. She might have a virus, Digivice anti-virus programs were expensive). "If YOU are goING to MEET me, please mAKe surE to arRIVe at the GARDEN of EdEN tomorrow! Otherwise, I WILL HACK your SYSTEM! WeLL, until tHEN."
The email deleted itself.
Ami gaped. What was that? Well, aside from weird… She rubbed her eyes and looked at her noodles.
A few minutes later, when she had started to eat, the chat password menu popped up. Ami smiled in relief. Well, maybe she could talk to the others about this. Bluebox would probably tell her to ignore it. He did every other time there was a spam message.
"I got that too!"
Ami smacked her head against her entertainment desk. Of course Akino did. She should have seen that coming.
Bluebox's avatar let out a squeak and an emoji exploded with rage. "We all did, it looks like."
"Well, I ain't goin'," one of their friends said. "It's just a troll, I bet. There's been a bunch of them since EDEN's last update!" His avatar spilled virtual ramen broth. Ami reflexively clutched at her styrofoam cup. "Come on, guys, you seriously ain't gonna do this, are ya?"
Akino's avatar squirmed. "Oh come on!" it said. Ami giggled, rubbing her sore head. "I betcha it's about that digimon thing, you know?"
"Yeah," another said. If a chat avatar could look offended, Ami was pretty sure that one would have scoffed. "You mean hackers! Those are the only idiots crazy enough to use those programs. Ain't no way I wanna get involved in that illegal crap. Not after the last thing they crashed."
"But it sounds fun!" Akino's protest was met with groans and sighs.
Bluebox smacked into her with his hat. "Your idea of fun is pretty screwed up there."
"Someone talk sense into this idiot." one of the others grumbled
Don't look at me, Ami thought to herself. Akino would always come on the chatroom to talk about the stunts everyone told her not to do. They all shouldn't be so surprised.
"There's no point," Bluebox said. There was a sigh sound, along with that stupid text thing with a katakana in it that Ami could never manage to replicate in chat. "I'll go with you then."
"Yahoo! I'm being asked out!" Akino's head tilted back and forth. "Anybody else?"
Ami hesitated, snickering at Bluebox's offended counter. She really wasn't sure about this… but considering it had gotten into her private email server, the idea of being hacked probably wasn't a prank. She laughed. Besides, Akino was kinda right, it sounded fun! She had a a couple of days until uni started anyway. "Sure," she typed. "I'm in."
Akino whooped and that sealed it. Whatever was going on, she was all in now.
While Ami wasn't looking, a blue crack appeared on her door.
A/N: Well, this was fun. Okay, to anybody who has not played Cyber Sleuth, this is just me celebrating it getting localized because that game is fun just from watching. This is a loose adaptation trilogy (I do mean loose because phew.) Eventual spoilers from the game but it'll be out in 2016. So... yeah! This is also way post-02 so for anyone who wonders about that, it will come up more as the fic continues.
Challenges: What if Challenge and Diversity Writing (Anime/Manga) K14. This will be a challenge for me. Oh well, here goes!