Disclaimer: I am writing in the DUBBED English Universe, as it is how I originally watched Digimon. Therefore, he is Myotismon, not Vamdemon.
The Illusionist
Chapter 1
"Huh… huh… huh…"
Her slamming pulse in her ears and the pounding of her sneakers on the pavement were the only sounds making their way to her ears. She knew the cops were yelling, knew their sirens were running on the cruisers they had left behind when they followed on foot. But she couldn't hear any of it, wouldn't. The only thing that mattered was optimizing her speed so she could outrun them.
Her backpack was synched tight so it wouldn't bounce on her back; so the only possession she valued wouldn't take any damage—her laptop. Or rather, some guy's laptop she had lithely pocketed at a café in Nagoya.
She remembered it well. It was the first time she had stolen something that wasn't to survive. "Large triple shot, soy no foam latte at the bar!" the barista had shouted.
An entitled beverage for an entitled man.
"Yeah, hold on," the man had said shortly, pushing a button on his Bluetooth device in his ear. She remembered not knowing who he was talking to: the person on the phone or the barista… either way, it was rude.
He turned his back, standing and approaching the café counter, leaving his laptop plugged into the wall on the table. Probably figured he would only be feet away—he'd catch anyone trying to take it. And he was probably right. She would need the charging cable too. It wouldn't do her much good to have a laptop and no way to charge it. But leaning under the table to unplug it would take too long. So she made a snap decision. She stood slowly to avoid drawing attention and went to walk out. As she passed his table, she scooped up the laptop, wrapping a fist around the cable and rocketing toward the door. She felt the resistance when she reached the end of the cable, but just as she planned, the force yanked the plug from the wall, trailing behind her like a wedding train.
"Korikona!" Officer Harada yelled, yanking her back from the memory. This wasn't two years ago, this wasn't Nagoya, and she wasn't a kid anymore. If they caught her, it wouldn't be juvenile lockup.
She dared a look over her shoulder, seeing that they were far enough behind. She turned a corner, rocketing down an alleyway next to the old Fuji TV station.
"Don't lose sight of her!" Harada yelled to his colleagues. He had dealt with her before, many times. She was starting to actually like the guy—hero type with a soft side. He'd let her off with warnings in the past because of her age, but she had a feeling that soft side was crystallizing as of late.
She skidded to a halt, yanking her backpack around and reaching in to grab the first wig she found. Blonde. Perfect. She threw it on, listening for the footfalls of the cops. She had time.
With her backpack pulled off, she was able to wrench her hoodie off, turning it inside out to reveal the yellow on the other side of the black. She threw her arms in, tossed her backpack over her shoulder once more, and hurtled down the rest of the alley.
She slowed as she approached the streets, however, and calmly walked into the crowd.
She had to give them credit; they kept up for a while, following in her general direction. But a few alleyways, wig changes, and clothing alterations later, they were done for. They didn't even know what they were looking for anymore. And Harada had known it. It's why he told his men not to lose sight of her. Because when people lost sight of her, they never found the same girl again.
That's what was great about big cities. Blending in and disappearing was as easy as calmly walking down the crowded streets. She'd practiced down to an art—Kyoto, Nagoya, Tokyo, and now Odaiba.
She smiled, putting the last of her wigs back in her backpack, letting her black braided pigtails fall freely. She followed the crowd downtown, casually making her way down to the old north end. She enjoyed the walk. The air was cold and had a mist in it, but it felt good. Refreshing. And the north end was a collection of old, out-of-use buildings, which inevitably where crowd-less. So staying in the stream with the fishes was her best bet currently. She wandered for a few hours as the sun went down, marveling at the neon lights, the opulent store fronts, the brightly-lit street signs, the colorful men and women. And when she felt it was safe, she headed home.
The Portal had been an old-fashioned theater, even when it was in business. They used an old marquee instead of a digital one, and their single-screen showroom had been a stage theatre once. Apparently, they had thought the novelty of it would make people want to see movies there. But their business model had been shit—one screen, one movie. Not a real crowd-pleaser.
She slipped under the chain link where she had cut her small hole almost a year ago. She pulled her backpack from her shoulder, gently tossing it up into the second-story window on the east side of the building, knowing it would land softly on the bed of newspapers she had piled there for just this reason. She backed away, finding the crack in the cement sidewalk that signified her usual spot. She took a deep breath, hurdling toward the wall.
She leapt onto the dumpster she had pushed just to the left of the window, using her momentum to backspin left and leap to the windowsill. She caught herself by her fingertips, as usual, and hauled herself into the projection room… or rather, her bedroom.
She smiled as she picked up her backpack. It wasn't much, but it was her version of perfect. In the far corner was her pile of sleeping bags and winter coats she used as a bed. The pillow she had stolen from a department store. The broken canvas wall art of a seahorse she had found in someone's trash bin. The broken wood backing made the seahorse a bit crooked in the middle, but she actually liked him that way. She had hung it on the wall using a nail she had pulled from a door hinge downstairs, and to this day, it hadn't failed. And when she came across a Sharpie, she had scribbled "Naru" to the seahorse's left.
On the opposite concrete wall she had spray painted "Kona" on the wall in graffiti using four different colors (stolen in the pillowcase of the stolen pillow).
She leaned down, using her lighter to light the six candles she used to illuminate her bedroom. She set her backpack on her bed, pulling her dying flashlight from its innards and heading downstairs to do her rounds.
She checked the two emergency exits first—still locked up tight. She headed for the front entrance next, where moviegoers used to pile in by the… twenties. Still boarded up and secured.
She hurried back upstairs, as she didn't want to exhaust the already fading flashlight battery. She plopped onto her bed with a sigh, pulling the potato salad and banana from her backpack, hoping they would be worth the police chase.
She opened the laptop, glad that her rendezvous into civilization had been good for more than just dinner. She was able to completely charge the laptop at the library first.
"Remember that random code I found on that strange website a while ago, Naru?" she said, pulling the peel back on the banana. "That one that reads like a story? I was able to download the next hundred pages. I don't know why I find it so interesting. It's just code. But it's cool… if you know how to read it, you find recurring ones. Like characters. And some of them are complete codes, some of them aren't. But then you keep studying and you find that somewhere in there, the code was completed. Then if you go back, you can find what completed it. Like… character arcs, in a story…"
She paused, looking up at the seahorse. His eyes were emotionless. She took a bite of the banana, finding it not quite ripe.
"Sorry, I'm boring you. You'd rather talk about seahorse stuff," she said with a giggle.
She plugged her headphones into the laptop, pulling up her playlist and diving in.
The sequence hadn't changed much since the last time she read it. There was one code she kept seeing that interested her, though. It seemed to eat the codes around it—they became part of it, and it got bigger… stronger. Like a virus of some kind. But when she had stopped reading last, the code's progress had drastically changed; become infinitely smaller. Like all its progress had been erased. She was interested to find it again, to see if it had been destroyed.
For several minutes, she just looked for the code. It had several identifying markers she always looked for; certain rules. And it had a gap in it that was partly completed. And when it had been almost completely erased, those gaps were still there. Which gave her hope in finding it again.
She drowned out the silence surrounding her with her playlist of foreign language music. She found she couldn't concentrate if she could understand the words. It was some German rock ballad, and it was one of her favorites.
Menschen suchen Menschen
Jeder sucht für sich allein
Menschen brauchen Menschen
Wir wollen nicht…
"IS SOMEONE THERE?"
Kona screamed as she yanked her headphones off and looked around frantically. Someone… a man… had just said that.
"He…hello?" she squeaked. She was positive she had checked all the doors… And unless someone parkoured their way through the window…
No answer. Just silence. She fished her switchblade from her backpack, tentatively putting her headphones back on, but only on one ear. She wanted to listen to the theater… make sure.
With a surprise, she realized she had found the code… the one she had been looking for. It was dead center in the sequence, and was smaller and less familiar than last time… as if even more coding had been stripped away. She furrowed her brow at the screen, trying to find the last time this code appeared. What was destroying it?
"ARE YOU THERE?"
Kona jumped again, but this time realized she only heard it in one ear… the one with her headphone on.
"Hello?" she squeaked again, this time keeping her headphones on.
"WILL YOU HELP ME?"
The voice was masculine, but small and weak… as if far away.
"I… who are you? How do I help you?" she asked, unsure of what was even happening. Was someone communicating with her through her computer? If so, how? She wasn't attached to the internet… she would need a data connection of some kind to maintain a connection with… anything.
"My name…un…important…"
The voice was breaking up, like a bad phone connection.
"Are you still there?" she asked quietly.
"Here. Will you… help… please…"
"Ok, yes, I will… but how?"
As she spoke, she noticed the code on her screen change suddenly. That shouldn't have been possible either… it was a download. It would need an internet connection to be modified.
She laid her fingers on the touchpad to scroll down and see if somehow she had deleted something.
The instant her skin met the computer, she felt a shock travel through her nerves. Her body seized up, and the computer's screen flashed a brilliant white so bright it lit the entire room as if with daylight. Then everything went black.