Takato stared, aghast, at the situation that was developing in the middle of his room. The egg shivered again, and a thin crack ran down its middle. A few chips of shell flaked away and spilled onto the rug.
"Oh, no," said Takato. "Oh, no oh no oh no..."
He pressed both his hands over the eggshell in a vain attempt to hold it together, only to feel yet more cracks spreading beneath his fingers. Now an intense heat was issuing from within the egg, hissing forth like jets of steam from the cracks. Takato held on until the heat threatened to remove his hands by burning them off. All he could do after that was watch in amazement as spurts of vapor continued to spout, surrounding it in a small cloud of whitish gas. The cloud grew larger and larger, filling most of the center of the room, until Takato could no longer even see his far wall. There was a final whoosh from somewhere within the egg, and then...
"Takato!"
Something big jumped from within the cloud and pounced onto the astonished boy. He toppled over backwards, thudding onto the carpet, and felt something licking his face with a warm wet tongue.
"Hey, take it easy! That tickles!" Takato protested, laughing in spite of himself.
Obediently, the whatever-it-was backed off. "Takato?"
"Yeah, that's right," said Takato vaguely.
He sat up and shook himself, trying to clear the fog from his brain as well as see through the mist in his room. Thankfully, most of that had settled down, and Takato could now see exactly what had pounced on him. It was...
... Well, it was red, for starters. Mostly red, anyway, with a white patch on its belly and black markings on various parts of its body. It had four limbs, each tipped with long thin claws, and a muscular tail sprung from the base of its back. Its head was reptilian, flat and blunt-nosed, with a pair of fin-like, upstanding ears. Just now, it was sitting back on its haunches, watching Takato with a curious light in its yellow eyes.
"A dragon," Takato whispered. "You - you're a dragon!"
"Nuh-uh," said the dragon. "I'm Guilmon!"
"Guilmon, huh?" Takato repeated. "Is that your name?"
The dragon just blinked at him in puzzlement. "I dunno. Is it?"
"I don't know either. You started it." Takato shook his head, mystified. "How did you know my name, anyway?"
"You told me," said Guilmon. "I was sleeping, and you told me."
"So you could hear me, when you were in the egg?"
"Mm-hm." Guilmon nodded.
"Wow," said Takato. "Guilmon. My very own dragon! This is so cool - I've always wanted a dragon!"
Guilmon sat up a little and pricked his ears forward. "You like me?"
Takato laughed. "Yeah, sure I like you! You're incredible!"
"Yay!" Guilmon pounced on Takato and started licking his face again. Takato didn't even bother to try to stop laughing. He finally managed to get the dragon to back off slightly so he could sit up again, and he set a friendly hand on Guilmon's snout.
"We're gonna be pals, aren't we, Guilmon?" he said.
"Yeah!" said Guilmon happily. Then he blinked. "What does that mean?"
"Well..." said Takato. "It means... it means we're going to hang out together and have a good time together and... and we'll look out for each other. You know, help each other when we're in trouble and stuff."
"Oh," said Guilmon. "I like that idea. That's a smart idea, Takato."
"Well, I didn't think of it all by myself," said Takato modestly. "Anyway, I promise I'll be a good friend for you."
"Me too," said Guilmon.
Takato smiled as he looked into the bright eyes of his new friend.
I'm going to take good care of you, he thought, feeling his resolve solidify. I'm not letting anyone take you from me, now - not those crazy policemen, and not that redheaded girl, either!
Of course, keeping a dragon in one's room is not without its complications. Takato managed well enough in the evening, and was even able to smuggle some stale bread up from downstairs so he could offer it to his new friend. He was worried that with those sharp carnivore's teeth, Guilmon might turn out to be a bit of a problem when it came to feeding, and he'd suffered visions of a red dragon roaming the streets in search of stray cats and pigeons. However, after some experimentation with the day's leftovers, it turned out that Guilmon thought sliced bread was the greatest thing since, well... it was pretty good stuff.
However, it was one thing when you could sit at home and play in your room all evening without anyone bothering you, and another when you had to go to school all day and leave something like Guilmon home alone. Takato's limited interactions with his new dragon had taught him that while Guilmon seemed to have some rough knowledge of the world, such as the ability to speak in simple sentences, he really didn't know a whole lot. There was no telling what he'd do while Takato wasn't around, and if he happened to make enough noise to catch his parents' attention...
Takato was still getting dressed for school and wondering what he was going to do (Guilmon was watching him with avid curiosity, still fascinated by the idea that his new friend felt the need to put on different colored "skin" every so often) when his mother knocked on the door.
"Takato?" she called. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah, Mom, I'm getting ready for school."
"Honey, we just got a call from the police department. They have some more questions they want to ask us, so we're going downtown. Your father says he wants to look into buying a new oven while we're down there, so we might be a little late getting home. Will you be able to look after yourself for the evening?"
"Yeah!" said Takato, almost a little too eagerly. "I mean, yeah, Mom, that's fine. No problem."
He could almost hear a frown on the other side of the door. "You aren't planning mischief, are you?"
"Who, me? Mischief? Of course not," said Takato. "I'm just saying I can take care of myself, that's all."
"Okay," said his mother suspiciously. "But I'd better not find the house burned down when we get back!"
Takato suddenly wondered if Guilmon could breathe fire. "Don't worry, you won't."
"All right. I'll see you this evening, then."
She walked away, her footsteps becoming quieter as they moved down the hall and towards the first floor. Takato sighed with relief.
"Well, that's the problem solved for today, anyway," he said.
Guilmon blinked. "Problem?"
"Oh, it's nothing important," said Takato reassuringly. "Guilmon, can you do me a big favor?"
"Favor?"
"I want you to do something for me."
"Ohhhhh, okay. I can do that."
"Good," Takato said. "I have to go somewhere today, and I want you to stay inside. Okay?"
Guilmon looked at him in puzzlement. "Go away? Why? We just met..."
"Oh, I'm not going to be gone long," Takato hurried to assure him, hating the hurt look on his new friend's face. "It's just, well, there's this place called school, see, and all kids like me have to go there for a while every day. I'll be back before it gets dark outside. I wouldn't go away and leave you forever."
"You'll come back?"
"Yeah, that's right. I'll be back before you know it, so just settle down and take a nap or something until I get back."
"Okay, Takato! I like naps."
Takato grinned. "Good. Well, you be a good boy, Guilmon. Try to stay in my room, but if you get hungry, you can go downstairs and get some bread from the back room. Only the back room, not the one with the big windows."
"Okay," said Guilmon agreeably.
Takato patted the dragon on his head, making him wag his tail happily, and then scooped up his backpack. As an afterthought, he picked up the odd device that had come with Guilmon's egg and put it in his pocket. He had a vague notion that the red-headed girl might want it back someday, and it was too likely to get lost in the chaos of his room if he left it home with Guilmon. He clipped it to his belt-loop and headed out through the door with a final goodbye. As he walked down the street, he thought he caught a glimpse of a red face peering out his window, and he waved. Guilmon waved back. Takato walked to school wondering what people would think if they happened to pass by and see Guilmon looking down at them.
He arrived at school a little early, which was usual for him. He liked to hang out with Hirokazu and Kenta on the playground for a while before the bell rang. They were there waiting for him, rocking idly on the swing set while they chatted. Takato jogged up to them, waving.
"Hey!" said Hirokazu. "Was wondering when you'd show up. How're things back home?"
"Messy," Takato replied, after a moment of thought. That was true enough. The uniformed men had made more than a small mess at the Matsuda residence, and nobody had had the time to clean it all up yet. That was actually a comfort to Takato - there was no way Guilmon could possibly make his room any messier than it already was.
"That's not a bad thing," said Hirokazu. "Anything that's too clean can't be healthy."
Kenta adjusted his glasses. "It's true, you know. I saw it on TV somewhere. If you never get dirty when you're a kid, you don't build up the - the immunities and stuff, and then you get sick."
"Well, we're all safe," said Takato, smiling a little. "Guess those weird guys were just trying to do me a favor."
"Yeah!" Hirokazu cheered. "War on neatness! Down with soap!"
Takato laughed. "You guys are nuts."
Hirokazu gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. "You started it."
"I did not! It was Kenta," Takato teased.
"You guys cut it out," said Kenta, blushing a little. "People are staring at us."
"Are they really?" Takato looked around. There weren't many people on the schoolyard early in the morning, and what few there were seemed to be primarily occupied with hanging out with their own friends. It didn't seem to Takato that any of them were being any less rambunctious than him and Hirokazu.
Then he caught a glimpse of someone who didn't fit in. It wasn't that he stood out from the crowd - far from it, and that was what finally made Takato realize there was something strange about him. He was standing at the far edge of the schoolyard, in the shade of a few trees, seeming to blend into the shadows. His skin and hair were both dark - the former a deep tan, the latter blue-black. In striking contrast were his eyes, which were a steely gray. Just now, they seemed to be fixed directly on Takato and his friends. Takato looked again and saw the boy's expression crease a tiny bit, as if in concern, and Takato felt a shiver run down his spine. He had the funny feeling that the boy wasn't looking at him and his friends... just at him.
"You're right, he is staring at us," said Takato at last. "Who is he? Anyone know?"
"Not me," said Kenta.
"I've seen him around," Hirokazu said. "He's in our grade - one of the other classes. Doesn't socialize much. Kinda creepy kid, if you ask me."
"Ah," Takato said vaguely. He glanced back at the steely-eyed boy. He seemed to have gotten bored with his watching and was now wandering towards the doors of the school. "Guess he's not very interested in us, after all."
"Guess not," Hirokazu said, shrugging. He had plainly lost interest in the conversation. "Hey, we'd better get inside. Teacher'll have a cow if we aren't in our seats when the bell rings. Man, that woman's a slave driver..."
He began wandering off in the direction of the school, and his friends followed with more resignation than enthusiasm. Takato trailed in the rear, not really thinking too much about where he was going. Before he entered the school's door, he stopped and looked around again. There was no sign of the strange boy. With a shrug, he chalked it up as just the least of the odd things that were happening to him lately, and decided not to think about it too much.
Later, he would find himself regretting his decision.
A small disturbance came up around lunchtime. As usual, the classroom had erupted into chaos as soon as the lunch bell rang, while the teacher simply slumped in her desk and let the noise crash around her. She had tried and failed in the past to keep them quiet during this hour, and now had come to accept the inevitable conclusion that even she couldn't keep her students under control all the time. They got up from their desks and circulated, exchanging scraps of gossip and checking to see who had packed what in their lunch boxes. One boy actually took out a laptop and logged onto the Internet.
"Hey, Takato," said Juri. "Do you want to sit next to me?" She indicated the empty seat of the desk next to her; the boy who had occupied it previously was off in a corner playing cards with some of his friends.
"Sure!" said Takato eagerly. He picked up his things and moved to this new and improved location. Juri smiled.
"I like having someone to share lunch with," she said conversationally. "My mother always makes too much for me to eat. You can have some, if you want."
"Thanks," he said, accepting a rice ball. Like most boys his age, he was almost perpetually hungry. "So... yeah. It was nice of you to ask me over the other day. I really enjoyed it."
She blushed a little. "Me, too."
"I was thinking, well, maybe we could do it again sometime? I mean, not the exact same thing, but, I dunno, maybe we could so see a movie or something?" He trailed off, feeling a bit breathless and surprised at himself for having actually come out and said anything.
"I'd like that," said Juri. "I'd like that a lot."
"It couldn't be right away," Takato admitted. "A lot of crazy stuff has been happening lately, things are kind of hectic with me, but... maybe next weekend?"
"That would be nice," she said. Her expression turned sympathetic. "You've been having a rough week, haven't you? I... I heard DREAD attacked your house."
"Yeah," said Takato. He found he was suddenly a little reluctant to talk to Juri about the strange men. He didn't want her to be touched by any of the weirdness that was threatening to unravel his life.
Juri lowered her eyes. "They scare me. When I first heard about them, I had nightmares that they'd come after me next..."
"You don't have to be scared, Juri," said Takato reassuringly. "DREAD mostly goes after government stuff. They wouldn't mess with a girl like you."
"They came after you," Juri pointed out.
"Nah," said Takato, trying to sound convincing. "That was probably a mistake, anyway. I think..." He hesitated. "I think they thought there was something at my house, but they were wrong. There wasn't anything there."
But there is now, he thought, and felt his insides squirm. If DREAD raided his house while he was at school...
"You're so brave," said Juri admiringly. "I don't know if I'd have the courage even to leave my room, if something like that almost happened to me."
"I'm not that brave," Takato answered modestly.
"Hey, what's this I hear?" said Hirokazu, bursting into the conversation like a wild rhino rushing through a picket fence. "Are you two lovebirds making wedding plans without me? I'm crushed!"
"Buzz off, Hirokazu," Takato said, turning brilliant red.
"Not only does he have a girlfriend, he's learned to talk back," said Hirokazu approvingly. "We might make a man out of you yet, Takato."
"Just because Takato is polite doesn't mean he's not a man, Hirokazu," said Juri. "I'll bet if you had been through what Takato's been through, you'd still be hiding under your bed."
Takato tried to imagine Hirokazu's reactions to the last few days and found himself giving Juri high marks for intuition.
"He doesn't mean it," said Kenta, ever the peacemaker. "Don't get all offended, Juri."
"Yeah, Hirokazu's just playing around," Takato said. "He's always like this. Ignore him."
"Ignore him, he says. Hmph. After all I've done for you, too," said Hirokazu, feigning annoyance. "Well, I know when I'm not wanted. Have fun planning your honeymoon, kids. I'm out."
He sauntered away with Kenta shadowing him. Takato shrugged.
"Are you sure he's your friend?" asked Juri.
"Yeah," said Takato. "Hirokazu's a good guy. He's just... loud. And a little obnoxious, I guess. But he's a good guy to have on your side anyway. Especially when you're bored."
"I guess," said Juri.
Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion on the other side of the room. The boy with the laptop was now surrounded by people looking over his shoulder at what was apparently a fascinating display. Takato could think of a few things that would cause a reaction like that, but most of them weren't the kind of thing the teacher was likely to put up with in her classroom. Sure enough, as soon as she realized what was going on, she got up and strode briskly across the room to loom over the hapless net-surfer.
"What is everyone looking at that's so interesting?" she asked sweetly. "Is it something I'd like to see?"
The assumption was that the student would quickly stammer out a negative and snap the laptop shut before she could see whatever forbidden thing he was looking at. Instead, rather to the surprise of the teacher and the rest of the class, he turned it around for her to look.
"There's been another sighting of DREAD," he said, pointing at the article displayed on the screen. "That's three in the last week."
With that, even those who hadn't been looking before leaned in for a better look. Takato glanced at Juri and saw that she'd gone pale. He got up and went to try to find a place to stand where he could read the article for himself. He couldn't, but fortunately, Hirokazu and Kenta had gotten there first, and they obligingly scooted out of the way so he could have a look.
Takato skimmed the article. The gist of it seemed to be that agents of DREAD had infiltrated a top-secret government laboratory and stolen some files. A few people were busily conjecturing on what this meant. It seemed that the files were not, as one might have expected, top-secret plans or blueprints or anything else interesting, but rather, some personnel files documenting the work histories of people who had worked for that branch years ago and had since passed into obscurity. Guesses as to why DREAD would want such a thing were already being discussed by the rest of the class. A few people joked that once again, the people at DREAD had gone for the wrong target - first going after the Matsuda's bakery, and now stealing files of worthless information. Other people were discussing kidnapping plots and equally dire possibilities.
Takato walked back to the desk he'd been occupying and found Juri still staring worriedly off into space.
"It's okay," he assured her. "Nothing bad has happened."
"What was it?" she asked.
"Nothing big. They just stole some file folders. Nothing important," he added quickly, as he saw her pale again. "Just old employee records. Stuff for people who haven't worked there since before we were born. Everybody thinks they've messed up again."
"Oh," said Juri. For some reason, she looked a great deal more relaxed. "I guess it could be worse."
"Yeah," Takato said. "Don't worry about a thing, Juri. Sooner or later they'll catch those guys from DREAD, and then we'll all be better off."
Juri nodded. "Thanks, Takato... for trying to make me feel better. You're the nicest boy I know."
Takato beamed. Somehow, all his problems seemed a lot smaller next to that.
Of course, not everyone was worried about impending threats from obscure criminal organizations. At the top of the list were Hirokazu and Kenta, who were interested primarily in seeing if they could get a soccer game going in the park after school. It would have been a shame to waste such a beautiful afternoon, and they had already rounded up a large number of their schoolmates to join in the fun.
"Hey, you're coming with us, right, Takato?" asked Hirokazu.
"I wish I could, but I can't. I've gotta go home. Mom and Dad had to go downtown today, and they want me to mind the bakery," Takato fibbed. He reflected that he was getting good at concocting extemporaneous stories. In this case, he felt he was justified - not only did he want to go home and make sure Guilmon was all right, but he knew good and well that he couldn't play soccer worth anything.
"Bummer," said Hirokazu. "Well, catch you next time, then!" He didn't sound particularly disappointed, but then, he was well aware of Takato's soccer skills, or lack thereof.
Takato nodded and waved, and then began walking slowly away, making sure everyone could see how disappointed he was at having to skip playing with his friends to mind the store. As soon as he was out of sight, however, he moved into a light jog. He had managed to keep his worries about Guilmon at a subconscious level most of the day, but now that he didn't have anything else to think about, they were coming back full-force. He decided to take the short route home, which involved cutting through some back alleys and climbing a fence or two, but would shave ten minutes off his walk.
He was just walking down one of these alleys when he was hit by a wave of deja vu - there were footsteps behind him. He quickly stopped and turned around, but saw no one. Feeling a crawling sensation up his spine, he nevertheless told himself that it was just his eternally overactive imagination making him think someone was following him. However, when he moved again, the light footfalls followed him. They were moving rather more quickly than Takato himself. Takato moved into a full jog. The footsteps broke into a run. Takato decided he could worry about his imagination later and moved into his fastest sprint, hoping desperately he could get back on the well-traveled road before whatever was behind him caught up to him...
Something tackled him from behind, slamming him down onto the dirty pavement, and a hand slapped over his mouth, reducing his cry of fright to a muffled choking sound. Takato struggled wildly, but whatever had him was stronger than he was, and seemed to know what it was doing. Within seconds, his attacker had wrested Takato's arms behind them and pulled them in a firm grip. Then the weight on his back let up, and Takato found himself being jerked to his feet and half-dragged behind the shelter of a large dumpster. Someone pulled them close enough that they could mutter into his ear, "Don't make a sound. Don't struggle, don't try to run, and I'll let you go."
There was no arguing with a command like that; Takato couldn't say a word while that hand was pressed over his mouth. He nodded eagerly - and then let out a breath of relief as the hand was removed. For a few seconds, it was all Takato could do just to stand there and try to get some air back in his lungs. He felt the other hand release his wrists, and he turned around to see what kind of trouble he was in this time. He found himself looking directly into a pair of steely-gray eyes.
"You again!" Takato exclaimed.
"Yes, it's me," answered the boy blandly. "I wanted to talk to you earlier, but there were people around."
"You didn't have to attack me," Takato complained, rubbing at his elbows where he'd bruised them in his fall.
The strange boy shrugged. "You ran. I couldn't let you get away. It was hard enough trying to find you alone once."
"So what do you want with me?"
"You know. I want it back."
Takato blinked. "What?"
"The egg," said the boy insistently. "I've been sent to get it back. Ruki said she'd told you we'd be back for it."
"Ruki... is she the girl with the red hair?"
The boy sighed and rolled his eyes, apparently annoyed by Takato's failure to catch on. "Yes. Listen, we really need it back. It's urgent. What did you do with it?"
"Tell me who you are first," answered Takato suspiciously.
"That's not important."
"It is to me. Ever since I met that crazy girl, it's been one weird thing after another. I want to know what the heck is going on!"
"All right, all right. My name is Jenrya Lee. I'm one of Ruki's helpers. She would have been here herself, but she had something to take care of, so she sent me."
"How do I know that for sure? You could be with the badguys, for all I know. You could be trying to trick me."
"I'm not trying to trick anyone. Look, it's none of your concern what's going on, anyway, and it would take too long to explain. Just give back the things we left with you, and you won't have any more problems."
Takato continued to glare distrustfully. The boy Jenrya sighed.
"I promise," he said gently, "I'm not trying to harm anyone. I'm a friend."
"Of who?"
"Of me, for starters!"
Much to Takato's surprise, Jenrya's backpack burst open, and a face peered out. Takato blinked. The creature in the backpack squirmed its way out and climbed onto Jenrya's shoulder as if there was nothing unusual about this at all. It looked rather like a dog, and rather like a rabbit, and at the same time not particularly like either. There was something almost human about its face, which was just now turned to regard Takato with a look of lively curiosity.
"So, this is the guy, huh?" the creature said. "He looks like a wimp to me. Ruki was pretty dumb to leave it with him. I didn't think she was that dumb, did you?"
"Nobody asked your opinion, Terriermon," said Jenrya. "Anyway, I told you to stay in the bag."
"I've been there all day, and it's stuffy in there!"
"What is that?" asked Takato.
"I'm not a that, I'm a who," said the little animal.
"He's a Digimon," said Jenrya. "This one is called Terriermon. Are you going to help me or not?"
Takato thought it over. "All right. I left it back in my room. I'll show you."
"Good," Jenrya answered, with a sigh of relief. "Lead the way."
Takato nodded and began escorting his strange new companion down the alley. Fortunately, it wasn't a very long way between there and the bakery, because Takato wasn't sure how much more confusion he could stand. He still wasn't completely convinced he trusted this strange boy, but...
A Digimon, huh? Could that be what Guilmon is?
They reached the bakery, which Takato was relieved to find was still standing and wasn't surrounded by the press or the police department, or any combination thereof. He unlocked the side door and led Jenrya upstairs to his room.
"In here," said Takato.
They walked up the hall and stopped. The door to Takato's room was open. Feeling slightly nervous, Takato stepped into his room. Other than it being full of Takato's belongings, strewed haphazardly across the floor, it was quite empty. Jenrya walked in and looked around.
"Where is it?" he asked.
"It's not," said Takato dully.
"What? What do you mean?"
"I mean he's not here! He's gone! I left him here this morning, and now he's gone!"
"He?" Jenrya repeated. "What do you mean, he?"
"Guilmon. Isn't that who you're looking for?"
Jenrya was still for a moment. "Are you trying to tell me that the egg... it hatched?"
"Yes."
"Oh, no..." Jenrya groaned. "You idiot! You weren't supposed to hatch it!"
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Takato protested.
"Moumantai, Jen!" said Terriermon. "You were gonna hatch it anyway, weren't you?"
"Yes, but it was going to be under controlled conditions! It wasn't going to be turned loose to roam the streets!"
"Wait," said Takato slowly. "The door was locked when I got here. Nobody could have gotten in from outside, and he's not too good with doorknobs yet. He's probably still in the house somewhere, unless he's busted out a hole in the wall or something. We ought to look for him first." Without bothering to hear Jenrya's reaction to this, he went wandering off down the hall calling, "Guilmon! Where are you?" After a moment, Jenrya shrugged and followed him.
A short search uncovered Guilmon in the back room of the bakery, which had been stacked with shelves of day-old rolls and slightly stale doughnuts. It was empty now, but the dragon was curled up asleep under a table with his paws tucked around his bulging tummy, with a silly smile plastered across his face. Takato gave a laugh of relief.
"Guilmon!" he exclaimed. "There you are! Oh, I was worried about you..."
Guilmon's eyes blinked sleepily open, and then focused on his human friend. "Takato! You came back! I was lonely..."
Takato hugged Guilmon, who licked his face affectionately. Jenrya watched them, his expression unreadable. Terriermon giggled.
"Aren't they cute?" he asked of no one in particular.
"Sure," said Jenrya. "Hey, listen, Takato or whatever your name is... We have to talk."
"Why?" asked Takato.
"Because things have gone wrong, and I'm not sure how to make them right again," Jenrya replied. "I'm probably going to need your help. You're probably going to need ours, too. It's obvious you don't have the knowledge or resources to care properly for a Digimon. We can help you there... By the way, do you still have the device that came with the egg?"
Takato nodded and took it out of his pocket. He was surprised to find that the screen was alight now, glowing softly. Jenrya glanced at it briefly.
"I thought so," he said. He sounded rather disappointed. "Ruki's going to be annoyed. Not that that's not her normal state, but still... We didn't count on this. You weren't who we would have chosen."
"What are you talking about?" asked Takato, slightly annoyed. He wasn't sure what was going on, but a lot of it sounded as if someone out there was disapproving of him for things he wasn't entirely sure he'd actually done.
In response, Jenrya took a device out of his pocket. It was just like the one Takato had been carrying, save that it was green where Takato's was red.
"This," he said, "is what we call a D-Ark. They are... links, I guess, that bind humans to Digimon. Mine binds me to Terriermon, and him to me - we're partners. Yours was linked to Guilmon, and it's active, which means that Guilmon is now bound to somebody, and since you're the only one who's interacted with him for any amount of time, that means it's probably you."
"So? I don't see why that's a bad thing," said Takato. "I like Guilmon, and he likes me." Guilmon nodded his agreement.
"Yes, but... well, the plan was that we were going to choose a partner for Guilmon. Someone who would be of some help to us. I don't know what you can do for us, but we can't just leave you and Guilmon unsupervised. You're going to have to come back to HQ and get this straightened out."
"What HQ?" asked Takato.
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"Oh, great," Takato muttered. "So you want me to randomly follow you to somewhere, and you won't even tell me where."
"No. I want you and Guilmon to follow me there. He can't stay here, you know. Look at the trouble he's already caused. Do you really think he'll stay undiscovered forever?"
"Well, now that you mention it..."
"He'll be safe with us. He'll have other Digimon to play with and everything, and you won't have to worry about your parents finding him."
"I guess there's that," said Takato.
"Listen, Takato... I know it's hard for you to trust me, but I am trying to help. You won't stay undiscovered. You've already had more near shaves than you know. Guilmon is going to be found by someone. If you don't come voluntarily with us now, then someone is going to come along later who won't give you a chance to come along quietly. They'll just snatch Guilmon out from under your nose - and maybe rub you out for good measure. I don't know. They're getting more desperate lately..."
"Who, DREAD?" asked Takato, feeling a chill again.
Jenrya gave him a long, steady look.
"We are DREAD," he said.
"Explain to me again," said Takato, "why I'm following you to the headquarters of a bunch of nationally known terrorists?"
"Criminals," answered Jenrya matter-of-factly, as he scrambled over a fence. "Not terrorists. There's a difference."
"Yeah, big difference," Takato muttered.
"Moumantai," said Terriermon. "We're not that bad, once you get to know us."
Takato and Guilmon were reluctantly following his new acquaintance's lead through a series of winding back streets. At least, Takato was reluctant. Guilmon was enjoying the jaunt, looking eagerly at the local pigeons and sniffing at trash cans, like a large and oddly colored dog. As for Takato, he was following only because he was so confused at this point that he really didn't know where else to go. He craved information, and this boy Jenrya seemed to know more about everything than anyone else he'd met recently, and also seemed inclined to give out some of that information if you asked him often enough. At any rate, Takato already seemed to have one foot in the quicksand, and it seemed easier to go down quietly than to draw out the inevitable.
"What does that mean, anyway?" he asked.
"Moumantai," said Jenrya. "It's Cantonese. It means 'take it easy'."
"Cantonese? That's like from China, right?"
Jenrya rolled his eyes a bit. "With a name like Lee, what did you think I was, British?"
"Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I mean, I guess there's nothing wrong with being Chinese..."
"Only half. My dad's Chinese, and my mom's from here," answered Jenrya. He sighed. "I'm sorry if I'm being rude. I'm not usually like this, but we've all been worried about... Guilmon. Things have been difficult enough lately, and with these new complications... Well, Ruki's going to strip a thread, at least."
"What are a bunch of kids doing in a terro- in a criminal organization, anyway? Aren't you a little, you know, young for this kind of thing?"
"I told you, we're not in DREAD, we are DREAD," said Jenrya, as if this explained everything. "And we're not as bad as the press makes us out. We just want something that's very, very hard to get."
"What's that?"
"Digimon! What else?" Terriermon piped up. "Who wouldn't want us? We're the best!"
Takato couldn't argue with that. Now that he'd met with Guilmon, he couldn't imagine not wanting him around. Still...
"What are Digimon, anyway? And why wouldn't anyone want you to have them?"
"Well," said Jenrya, "that's a long story. The short version is, they're weapons."
"Weapons?"
"Well, you know what Cyphers are, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Okay, Digimon are like Cyphers... only more so. There's no human in any of them - they're pure digital life. They were invented... oh, years ago, back when Cyberspace was just starting up. A team of developers were hired to attempt to create digital life forms that could live in the real world and in Cyberspace, and could be moved by programming. Most of them thought it was just going to be part of the game, and they designed the Digimon accordingly. The idea was roughly that you could tame them as your partners and then have them compete with each other - kind of like those old pocket monster games they used to play with, on a much larger scale."
"Right, I'm with you so far."
"The trouble is, the government wasn't interested in toys. They wanted weapons - monster soldiers that could be mass-produced and packed their own firepower. Anyone who had something like that would be the most powerful government in the world, most likely," said Jenrya. "One of the developers, though, he didn't like that idea, so he sabotaged the project. All the notes and things for it have disappeared, and him with them. All that was left were the Digimon - and they've all been sent into Cyberspace and settled down there. For a long time, nobody really knew they were there, because there weren't many of them at first, and they weren't very strong yet... but it looks like someone started an algorithm that's allowed them to reproduce and evolve. There are hundreds of them now, and some of them are amazingly powerful... and now they're starting to trickle into the real world."
"Wow," said Takato. "So there are going to be more monsters like Guilmon and Terriermon? But that'll be great!"
"Will it? Do you think people are going to want hundreds of monsters roaming the city streets? No. They can't be controlled now. There are too many of them, and they're too smart and too powerful. Some of them are every bit as intelligent as humans, and some are even more so. All of them can do things humans can't. It's possible they could become a threat. There are plans in motion to have all the Digimon destroyed."
Takato clutched protectively at Guilmon. "They can't!"
"They're going to try," said Jenrya. "That much, we've been able to gather. We've already derailed a few of their earliest attempts. See, that's what DREAD is all about. We're the Digimon Research And Defense organization. Our mission is to stop the Digimon from being deleted - and, maybe someday, to open the paths that will let them co-exist with humans in the real world." He smiled a little and patted Terriermon on the head. "Deep down, Digimon are just like people. Even if some of them are dangerous, it's still not right just to kill them all."
"Digimon Research And Defence," Takato mused. "Hmm..."
Jenrya looked at him expectantly, waiting for an opinion.
"That doesn't spell DREAD. It spells DRAD."
Jenrya sighed. "It was Ryo's idea. He wanted it to spell something cool, so we left the E in Research."
"Oh."
"But you understand what I'm talking about, right?" asked Jenrya, a little desperately.
"Kind of," said Takato.
"Well, Ruki can explain more, when you see her," Jenrya said. "She's the de facto leader around here. I'm just helping out as best I can. My dad, too. He was one of the original programmers - that's how I know so much. I think Ruki hired me on just for that."
"Oh," said Takato again.
"Anyway, you'll see them all soon. We're almost there."
They were now walking through an area that consisted mainly of small storage sheds, the kind where people stored their things in when they went away for the summer. Jenrya glanced up at the numbers on the doors until he found the one he wanted. He walked over and began fiddling with a padlock on the door.
"This is it," he said. "Let's see, 4, 17, 5, 1, 4... got it!"
The lock clicked open, and the boys and their Digimon stepped inside and closed the door. Jenrya flicked on a low-watt lightbulb, and Takato stared. Inside the shed was... a pile of junk. Through the gloom and dust, Takato picked out a rusty bicycle, an old sewing machine, a vanity with a broken mirror, and innumerable cardboard boxes.
"It's the best we could afford," said Jenrya.
"Your headquarters is in a shed," Takato said blankly. He decided that despite his previous experiences, he had failed to plumb the depths of weirdness his life could sink to.
"No," Jenrya said. "The gateway to our headquarters is in a shed. Our headquarters is in Cyberspace. Have a look."
He moved carefully to the back of the shed, attempting and largely succeeding at not tripping over anything. Takato and Guilmon did not manage quite so well, causing Jenrya to cringe a bit as they made a heap of boxes topple over with a dusty thump. At the far corner of the room there was a particularly large box that appeared to have once held a microwave. Jenrya picked it up and set it aside, revealing a mess of complicated wires and circuit boards and other things the technologically ignorant Takato couldn't understand, and in the middle of it all was a nicer-than-average laptop computer. Jenrya turned a few switches and made everything hum to life.
"Um... you know we're not allowed in Cyberspace, right?" said Takato. "I mean, they locked it all up. We can't go in."
"We can," said Jenrya. "One of our members has... interesting talents. He was breaking laws before any of us ever thought of DREAD."
He picked up a device on the end of a long wire and handed it to Takato, who recognized it as a crude reproduction of the entrance devices used to transfer solid matter to Cyberspace. He eyed it distrustfully.
"Are you sure this thing works?"
"Yes. I've used it dozens of times before. It's perfectly safe."
"What about Guilmon?"
"Don't worry. He'll follow you as long as you're touching him. Remember, this is second nature to him. Ready?"
Takato took his puzzled partner's hand. "Ready."
"Okay. Hold on."
Jenrya flipped a switch, and there was -
- a flash and a lurch and they were spinning and falling and -
- they landed safely on the other side. Takato blinked and looked around.
Now, this was more like what he'd imagined DREAD headquarters would be like. He was standing in a long hallway with doors leading off to either side, with a larger door at the far end. Jenrya took a breath as if bracing himself to do something unpleasant and began striding up the hallway. Takato followed behind, with Guilmon bringing up the lead. Terriermon giggled.
"Jen's gonna get in trouble!" he said in a singsong voice.
Jenrya glared, and Terriermon laughed. Takato kept quiet. As he drew closer to the door at the far end, he could make out the sounds of other voices. It stood slightly ajar, allowing him to hear bits of an argument of sorts.
"Owwww! Easy, Ruki - that smarts!"
"Well, if you'd hold still, it wouldn't hurt so much!"
"Next time, I'm going to wait for Jenrya to come back. You'd think a girl would have a gentler touch, but no..."
"Shut up, Ryo. It's your own fault for getting a stupid bullet stuck in you. We're all getting tired of fishing them out."
"I can't help it! You always send me to do the dirty work and the complain when I get hurt."
"You're the only one we can spare."
"Thank you, Ruki. I feel so loved."
"Fine! Here's Jenrya - let him fix you! I quit!"
Takato arrived in the next room just in time to see a familiar red-haired girl throw up her hands in disgust. She stalked over to Jenrya and thrust what appeared to be a pair of long-handled tweezers into his hands.
"Here! You fix him," she snapped, and turned around and walked off without seeming to notice Takato.
Jenrya sighed and appeared to decide that if she didn't want to bring up the subject, he wouldn't either. He walked across the room to a small table, where a boy was half-reclining, propped up on one elbow and watching the exchange with an expression of interest. Takato looked back at him. He appeared to be rather older than the rest of the group - perhaps his mid-teens. At the moment he was shirtless, showing off an athletic build and enviably tanned skin. He had the kind of untidy hair that suggested he had just gotten through doing something exciting and adventurous and hadn't gotten around to straightening up afterwards, and had the kind of clear blue eyes and bright white smile that more than likely made all girls in the vicinity sigh after him... with the possible exception of the red- haired one who was sulking at the far end of the room. Just now, the only unattractive thing about him was a large, ugly wound in one shoulder.
"Hurt yourself again, hm?" asked Jenrya. "You really should learn to be more careful. You can't recover from everything, you know."
"What good am I if I can't take a risk now and then?" answered the other boy.
"Well, hold still and I'll see what I can do."
Takato watched as Jenrya, acting as if this were all very commonplace, inserted the tweezers into the hole in Ryo's shoulder, fished around a bit, and withdrew a chunk of metal. He looked at it critically.
"Seems to be in one piece," he said. "You were lucky this time. You should heal up just fine, now."
"You don't have to tell me that," Ryo answered. "Took you so long to get here, it's healing up already. It'll be gone by nightfall, at this rate."
Takato continued to stare in mild horror. It was not so much watching these two people talking about getting shot as if it were a scraped knee that bothered him. It was the fact that the blood Ryo was leaking appeared to be a peculiar shade of reddish purple, and seemed to vanish in small sparks before it could drip on the floor.
"You - you're a Cypher!" Takato blurted.
Ryo grinned. "Kind of you to notice. Can I have my shirt back, please, somebody? Not that I don't know I look my best this way, but..."
Ruki balled up a wad of cloth and threw it across the room at him. "Put your stupid shirt on and shut your mouth."
Ryo grinned and winked. "Sweetheart, isn't she? So, Jen, this is the guy, huh? I didn't know you were bringing him back."
On the other side of the room, Ruki stiffened. She slowly turned around, as if she hoped that Takato wouldn't be there if she just took long enough to get around to looking at him. He was still there. He grinned sheepishly. Her eyes narrowed.
"You'd better have a good reason for this," she said. "You were supposed to bring me the egg, not him."
"Well," said Jenrya, "there's been... a little problem."
"Problem?"
Guilmon came shuffling into the room, sniffing the floor like a curious puppy. He raised his head and pricked his ears forward as he caught sight of Ruki. "Do I know you?"
"Oh, great," said Ruki. "Don't tell me."
"He hatched," Jenrya said repentantly. "I'm sorry, Ruki, I tried to get there in time... It took long enough just to track him down."
Ruki sighed deeply. "Just when we didn't need a security breach. Well, we'll just have to deal with it now, I guess. I'll talk to the Advisor about it. Maybe they'll have a suggestion." She turned and began walking off. "One of you guys keep an eye on the kid. I'll be back when I have the Advisor's answer."
She disappeared through a door and slammed it behind her. Ryo shook her head.
"She takes things way too seriously," he said.
"And you don't take things seriously enough," Jenrya retorted. "She has a right to be annoyed."
"She doesn't have to treat him like dirt, though," Ryo replied. "What's your name, kid?"
"I'm not a kid," said Takato, "and my name's Takato. Takato Matsuda."
"Okay, sorry. Takato. I'm Ryo. I guess you've already met Jenrya."
Takato nodded. "Yeah, we met, kinda."
"I don't know if it's a good idea to get too friendly with him," said Jenrya. "No telling what the Advisor is going to say about him."
"Who's this Advisor?" asked Takato.
Ryo shrugged and grinned. "No idea. Funny, isn't it?"
"The Advisor is our advisor," said Terriermon patiently. "That's not hard to figure out, is it?"
"Well, I guess not, but..."
"We don't know exactly who the Advisor is," said Jenrya. "I don't even think Ruki knows, and she probably knows more about him than anyone else. None of us have ever met him face to face. All I know is that the Advisor seems to know all about Digimon and e-mails us once in a while with information. He sends us things - tips on what to do next, sometimes even money to pay for things... like the shed, for example."
"So... let me get this straight," said Takato slowly. "DREAD - this big criminal organization that's got everyone in the country scared - is just three kids and an invisible man who sends e-mails."
"Roughly," said Ryo. "You forgot Mr. Lee, though. And the Digimon. They're the most important part. And I'm not a kid - I'm a Cypher."
"Well, okay, but still," said Takato. "How can you be any kind of threat at all? Why is everybody so worried about you?"
"Well, look at what we've managed to do so far," said Jenrya. "I mean, we got Guilmon this week. That's a big achievement right there."
Takato glanced at Guilmon. He appeared to have discovered his reflection in a nearby computer screen and was busy trying to figure out where the other dragon had come from.
"It is?"
"Yes," said Jenrya. "Guilmon is... special. He's not like any of the other Digimon. Every other Digimon in the world is a result, directly or indirectly, of the project my father was working on. Guilmon was created only a few months ago. He is - or was - part of the project to eliminate all the other Digimon. Their intent was to fight fire with fire. If he had stayed where he was, he would have been loaded with programming that would have allowed him to be controlled, and he would have been sent out to search for other Digimon and destroy them."
"So you stole him," said Takato. "All right. How?"
"Ruki and her partner did most of it," said Jenrya.
Takato laughed. The other boys glared at him.
"Oh, come on. You're telling me that one girl broke into a top-secret government lab, probably full of guards and cameras and who-knows-what-else, and stole their top-secret project right from under their nose?"
"She did it," said Ryo. "It doesn't pay to underestimate that chick - or her partner. That Renamon's one slick piece of programming." He shook his head in a show of awe and admiration.
Jenrya nodded. "She can walk through walls as easy as you can walk through an open door."
Takato remembered the last time he'd seen Ruki. She'd been running along, and then, suddenly, she hadn't been anywhere. Had that been her partner at work?
"It's going to take a long time to get you all filled in," said Jenrya, frowning a bit.
"If we decide to keep him," said Ryo. "It might be easier to do without him. No offense, Takato, but we really did want a strong Tamer for Guilmon, and I don't know if you're up to the job."
Takato glared at him. "What, do you think you could do better?"
"I've got my partner already. I can't have another one," said Ryo. "Anyway, it's not up to me, it's up to the Advisor... and Ruki."
As if on cue, a door opened, and Ruki herself reappeared, looking thoughtful. All eyes immediately fastened on her.
"Well," she said, "I talked to the Advisor."
"That was fast. Normally he takes longer than that," said Jenrya. "What did he say?"
"He says... well, he says that if Guilmon bonded to this guy, there's probably a good reason for it," she said, wincing as if the words tasted sour. "It looks like we're going to have to keep him." She fixed her unfathomable violet eyes on Takato. "Congratulations, kid. You're one of us."
