Ch. 6

The Crisis Control Center. A Japanese Government thinktank and quasi-agency. Its purpose was to consolidate control of government control of crises of a covert nature and determine if the crisis they were informed of was a real crisis. They often handled crises of a covert nature. Missing viles of diseases that were very communicable, missing nuclear material, and other odds and ends. The sort of things governments did not want in a newspaper until well after the crisis, preferably in a future administration. The government agency was based in Sendai away from a possible crisis zone.

Looking over the request, Major General Sakurai, an experienced desk jockey. The looked over his glasses. He had to think this over. "An invasion in Tokyo? I think I would have seen it on the news." replied the General, he looked west towards Sendai station.

"I mean it was made by Yamaki's deputy of military operations, not the man himself. I say we should not hear it. " The General told the captain, his aide de camp, a young and ambitious officer named Ohno.

"Sir, Director Nakaga, and Dr. Shibata agreed to hear this," Captain told his boss calmly.

The Major General sneered. "Those fools think that the Digimon Issue should be handled with a soft touch. The only way we will ensure the problem is handled is if we end Hypnos and be honest about the whole thing. And kill every Digimon in sight. The military is the only group capable of handling it." Major General Sakurai stopped himself on purpose.

"At least all I have to sway is Dr. Sano that this crisis is not severe, and Dr. Kaneko will side with me. We can focus on our real problems. North Korea, China, and cyberterrorism." Sakurai finished his statement. He saw a bullet train arrive at the station.

"Well sir, if it blows up, you can take the train north to Hokkaido." Captain Ohno would state in his usual dry manner.

"Well, tell those fools I will join them and that they should know my vote going in." Major General Sakurai stood up and put on his jacket. "What a waste of time."

"Sir," Ohno told his boss. What Ohno neglected to inform his boss he knew Major Mifune from his days at the National Defense Academy of Japan in Yokosuka. It was not the thing his boss needed to hear. While he knew Mifune would not lie about such a situation. Ohno knew Mifune well as they were roommates at the NDA. Major General Sakurai was a stone when he made up his mind. The General never used his weapon and stayed in shape enough to keep from being retired. He was a ladder climber and while Ohno knew the desk jockey would not get above the three-star rank. That could still lead to Sakurai doing a lot of damage. Sure Ohno could tell Sakurai about this and deal with the general yelling at him for an hour or just follow the current. Ohno followed the current.

The meeting would be interesting both Sakurai and Ohno would mentally agree.


(-)

Misawa Air Force Base, a Joint US-Japanese base for several fighter squadrons of both American and Japanese units. In the base was a massive round fence-like structure. This was apart of Security point. A part of the base used by the US to detect Soviet nuclear attacks in the cold war and now was a facility used by the NSA.

The building at Security point was a major NSA facility with servers and satellite interception technology to no end. The Facilities in South Korea may have some ability but Misawa was the regional chieftain for intercepting Chinese, North Korean, and Russian signals as well as all other national signals. Misawa was the largest ECHELON base in the Pacific (The largest NSA base in the world outside of the UK and US, was Bad Aibling Station in Bavaria, Germany.)

The facility here was responsible for ECHELON and IRON SIDES, (Pacific). IRON SIDES was a firewall program the United States government in their infinite wisdom decided to go with firewall instead of fighting each creature individually. This was primarily to avoid these lifeforms causing havoc on the markets. Which concerned leaders more than the creatures existing. If they could cause economic havoc that worried President Harry Keating. Keating was a little more busy with the impeachment proceedings he had at the time but the near collapse of the Southeast Asian Markets was rumored to have been caused by Digimon.

But instead of Vice President Roger Tyler becoming president, Governor James Lawrence from Ohio won. He was more economy focused and decided the Digimon thing were to take a backseat and that "The Digiman thing best remain hidden. People would panic if the truth got out. Think Orson Welles and the War of the World's Broadcast. That's what I have been told by experts in this problem. " To quote the President upon him entering Oval Office. So that's what they did. Then the war on terror began and Lawrence had his attention elsewhere. Now it was centered on Russia.

Here at Misawa the day watch commander looked at the threat board. Nothing was going on. Here in Japan, he had to worry about. North Korea sent out another ghost fleet of fishing trawlers that were found by the Japanese. The empty trawlers were creepy. No sign of a living soul aboard but evidence people had been there. The local Misawa and Pine Gap in Australia were watching the Chinese Aircraft Carrier Mao heading the South China Sea. Several acts of terrorism in the Philipines, Vietnam was raising holy hell over China in their waters. Taiwan was on alert as a carrier moving south could be trouble.

The watch commander looked at the data they were getting from Japan and did notice an increase in traffic in intragovernmental communications here in their host nation. Might not be his concern but he wrote it down in the report log.

The watch commander wrote the report in the log:

"At 03:41 Zulu (12:41 Local), Ladylove detected increase intragovernmental communications between agencies of the Japanese Government. As per the Order of July 12th of this year, we are monitoring the number of communications but not intercepting them. The volume of communications leaving the National Network Administration (Codename: Hypnos) indicates some sort of event has occurred. Nature of event unknown. Likely hypothesis is Chinese or North Korean backed cyberattack. Though no evidence supports this as we lack any evidence currently to propose an alternative hypothesis."

The Watch commander sent the log in an Email to the ECHELON watch center and Project Palisades watch center as well. The Watch Commander did not know what to think about the activity but it was probably benign. No other information suggested it was severe.

The Watch Commander figured today was going to be a long one. At least his shift would be over soon. Nightwatch sucked more as Fort Meade called more as it was daytime there. Their days were Misawa's nights. That made them chatty.


(-)

The Hypnos Arsenal was filled to the ceiling with rifles, handguns, machine guns, machine pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, grenades, explosives, heavy weapons, and special weapons. The arsenal made bullets put powder together with the rounds and was in charge of weapons maintenance.

The arsenal today was on alert, Major Mifune told them about an alert of some kind so they were on alert.

First Lieutenant Fukushima ran the arsenal and while he was not a captain, he was not anybody's right hand, he was a soldier and ran this unit with a fierce independent motivation to excel in weapons making. Fukushima was looking at the thirty men under him he mostly had privates and a few corporals, two sergeants, one master sergeant, and one warrant officer. Fukushima looked at the weapons logout book. The Hakone team signed out some M60 revolvers. They were the last group to sign out guns.

Fukushima was by all accounts a proud officer of the quartermaster corps. He was the backbone of the Ground Self Defense Force. He made sure his uniform was clean and that he was providing the soldiers the best help he could.

Fukushima was prepared for either the alert to end or to go on a war footing. War footing meant he could open the heavy weapons and special weapons. He would dutifully carry out his duty either way.

The phone rang. Fukushima answered. "Arsenal here, Fukushima speaking."

The voice of Major Mifune came on the phone line. "We're on a war footing. Prepare all weapons. Open up special weapons and heavy weapons, they will not be authorized but I want them ready. All other weapons can be signed out."

Fukushima nodded at the voice on the phone. "With pleasure sir!"

Mifune hung up. Fukushima looked at his men. "Alright men, we're on a war footing! All weapons are to be greased, oiled, cleaned, and ready for use! Got that!?" Fukushima barked the order to his men.

"Yes Sir!" the men replied, some with smiles on their faces.

"Let's go to work!" Fukushima ordered. The soldiers quickly went to do their tasks.

The locked cages for rifles, shotguns and other firearms were being unlocked and opened. The Lieutenant opened the special cages for the special weapons, the heavy duty EMPs, the anti-tank weapons and more.

"I want these weapons ready Sergeant," Fukushima told his highest ranked non-commissioned officer.

"Yes sir." the Sergeant looked over the big EMP bombs, pointing at them, "Do we read them?"

"Yes." the junior officer told the Sergeant.

"Yes sir." the sergeant went to the electromagnetic pulse bombs to ready them.

First Lieutenant Fukushima looked at the weapons being brought out; flamethrowers, rocket launchers, 20-millimeter anti-material rifles, mini-guns, flashbang grenades, auto-cannons, and newer weapons to the arsenal. The EMP grenade was the newest weapon in the Hypnos and NATO arsenal. The EMP grenade had one major flaw range when the pin was pulled and the spoon was lifted the grenade only had a range of three to six meters (on a good day) one to three meters on a bad day. It was weak against concrete and insulated walls, metals like a metal desk would weaken its range, also there was the chance they were dudes and they would not know. With all the problems the EMP grenade had, it was why if the Hypnos military units were deployed they'd have more flashbangs with than EMP grenades, the egg heads theorized that the blinding flash and deafening noise the flashbang grenade made would do much more harm to a Digimon. They have more acute senses and would be negatively affected by them.

Then there were wackier the weapons Restraining cables, harpoons (literal harpoons), sticky foam (a new crowd control foam designed by the Americans and used in force in Afghanistan and Stateside), the incapciting flashlight (it could blind a man temporarily), a temporary blinding laser (which was illegal for Japan to have), the Active Denial System (a microwave crowd control system to be used in next year's political conventions in America), and sonic weaponry (recently being used on protesters at the last G8 in France and protesters in New York City last year as well).

Fukushima walked over to his stereo and put on a song of his and the stereo volume set to a low enough volume that would not disrupt work in the arsenal.

"It's the end of the world as we know it

It's the end of the world as we know it

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine"


(-)

Nami Asagi was rather pleased her class was orderly. Her kids did ask odd questions like," What was with the weird naming thing? Why are you adding mon to a name?" why were they asking about the way of naming people? Wasn't Takatomon or Jerimon proper? Why were her students acting so uninformed? She had taught them properly!

Takato was off doodling again. He was imagining himself as a knight, an awesome fighter. He would be the best virus out there.

Wait, what? He was not a virus he was a humon, a human. He wasn't a Digiman. Digimon. God he must be spending too much time around Guilmon. He needed to really clear his head of these odd thoughts he was a human, not a Digimon. His parents were bakers. The boy returned to his doodling not noticing the odd redness on his hand.

The other kids were slowly giving into the new weirdness of their teacher. This was odd but it was a relief for the students here. Miss Asagi seemed to be getting nicer and less selfish as a teacher. They liked the fact she was being more interested in their questions and struggles actually was something many of the students of 5-2 liked. So she was looking a bit on the side of an athlete from Europe or something, she was just being more awesome.

Jeri had the odd thought of at home standing up to her parents and the drunks at the bar her father operated. Sometimes they were grabby, not in an inappropriate way, (anytime that happened her father threw them out, Jeri still knew he loved her a lot) but they offered life advice from "Smile More" to "Invest in Yamashida Plastics." She felt like she should tell those men to buzz off, it may not be polite but they were creeps. One guy always took her puppet. That jerk was gonna get punched if he did it again. It may get her into trouble but that would feel good.

Kazu was with Kenta planning their inevitable way to beat Takato as he had been on a roll lately. "Since when did Takato get so good at the game?" Kazu asked Kenta at lunch.

"I don't know. But we'll find a way to beat him!" he enthusiastically encouraged his friend.

The two boys began talking about their strategies for beating the goggle-wearing boy.

In a nearby classroom, Mr. Mori was watching his students as they ate the food during the lunch hour. The students in his class were wondering why their teacher had frosted tips on his hair? Mori was trying to figure out a way to ask Asagi out. It was a hard thing for him as he was a typically shy man. But maybe two types like them could get together.

The class was dull in Henry's class. Lunch was snoresville he wanted to crack a joke or two at these stiffs. They were a bit too serious and coming from him that was not good. He just was bored and the stiff and rigid crap was getting on Herny's mind. He saw the teacher and wondered why that ugly bugger was so calm. Two boys were going to have a battle soon in the class. The teacher coughed at the two boys who had started an arm wrestling match. They promptly stopped.


(-)

Across the ward at the girl's school, Rika was bored. The natural science class was boring the teacher was droning on about the destruction of the great barrier reef by human pollution in the Pacific. This was not Gleason-sensei. This was the windbag. He had a lot of opinions on the environment and while it was probably important he was trying to leave his mark on these girls, well his ideology.

"While many nations are trying to increase recycling, pollution is still at an all-time high. Chemicals are still being poured into the sea by developing nations like India, China, Brazil and many others. That is not including the chemicals that nations like America and Japan dump into the sea every day." The science teacher droned on.

Rika was thinking of the best ways to escape the classroom. Perhaps the window? Too high up to leap out of an open window, she can't just throw a smoke bomb, she lacked one and that would get her mother to come to the school. Perhaps she could bail after Gleason-Sensei's class. He was a tolerable teacher to her. He was kind but did not take crap from the kids. She had a crush on him. Yes, he was married but Mr. Gleason was attractive to her. She would not do anything but Mr. Gleason was definitely handsome.

"Now, of course, nuclear waste is still a major issue. We need to be careful of where we store it as it will be around much longer than any of us will be around. And while the Americans plan to use Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste, local opposition has let this waste pile up." The science teacher was on the soapbox again. Rika hated it when the science teacher was using the classroom to bore her and her peers.

This sort of thing made Rika want to escape the classroom. It would not be the first time she played hooky. However, her mother and grandmother disliked it when the school called them. It was something they both would be very displeased with. Grandma scared her the most.

She would leave the school for a bit and return for Gleason's class. She would wait until the next break to make her escape.


(-)

Tally had a wonderful couple days with her boyfriend, Junishiro Yamada, the young Junishiro was only a year older than her. Yamada's apartment was rather sparse there were a TV, Anime posters, a stereo, a computer, a mini-fridge, and a few items of furniture. Tally and Junishiro dressed and ready for their trip.

They were going to go to a cheap inn at Nagano. It would be romantic. Away from the big city and hiking in the lovely town of Nagano. It was a good trip it was cheaper than going to Hokkaido as it was getting close to that time of year and it was closer.

Junishiro and Tally wanted to test their relationship with this trip. The new couple was worried that such a trip this early may be too much but it was a thing that both Tall and Junishiro wanted to do. They could rent skis at Nagano and ski there. It was a low-cost vacation but it was worth a shot. If the relationship advanced more both Tally and Junishiro would move in together. It would help with the rent or possibly set them a good foot forward in marriage.

But both knew such fantasies were far off in the future. But Junishiro and Tally were just happy. The Nagano trip would be a fun outing and if Yamaki called them they could say they didn't have cell service or they lost their phones.

Tally would not be lying if she had been polishing up on a resume for the private sector. The rumors of Hypnos being shuttered sounded true. All her time at Hypnos said was technology analyst for the government. Which her potential employers would find was true. The agency would be in chaos all because some policy jerk got his toes stepped on. Oh well, she was going to try a relationship with this cute mon.

"Wait.. huh?" Tally shook her head.

"Somethin the matter?" Junishiro asked. He scratched at his arm absentmindedly, it seemed a little yellow but neither Tally or Junishiro thought much about it.

"I must be letting the work get to me. I think this vacation will do me good." Tally teased she brushed her hair, feeling a weird bump on the side of her head.

"Well let's go to Nagano." Junishiro smiled, his teeth seemed a little sharper, while he gave a predatory smile. "Come we can have a great vacation in Nagano. " He held out her hand their bags ready for a vacation to the ski resort city of Nagano.

"Ready, Tally?" asked Junishiro, his smirk seemed off, like his canines were too pointed.

"Yes let's go!" Tally excited cried as they exited Junishiro's apartment. They left so quickly it seemed like a gust of wind followed them. After the room settled down, a single white feather drifted down to the ground. It was odd as neither Tally or Junishiro had birds.


(-)

The Tokyo morgue was busier than normal. The doors to the old cold storage area were ripped off the hinges. Crime scene technicians were taking pictures and gathering evidence. Inspector Kanda inspected the damage.

"Impossible, no way a man could do this." Kanda looked at the damaged wall, rebar bent and twisted at impossible angles for a human to do yet a man did this. The doors looked like a truck hit them doing sixty kilometers an hour. There were hand prints that had pushed into the wall. "My god, what could have caused this?"

"The homeless man is believed to have caused this but it's impossible." the younger officer told Kanda.

Kanda turned to face the young cop. "Why's that?"

Officer Notori gulped, "Well Doctor Hida told me and that the organs had been removed."

Kanda shook his head, "That's impossible, a dead man may get better but he doesn't come back to life if he's been dead better part of a day!"

"Well look at the security footage, sir. I see a naked homeless man leaving the cold storage and leaving the building. Along the way, he made that hole in the wall. " Notori pointed to the security booth.

Kanda was looking at the hand-shaped hole, he saw a residue, "Have the crime scene people take samples."

"They did that already sir. They took buckets. The man had a lot of that substance on him." Notori replied to his boss.

"Well let us look at Mr. Maru-Maru's escape." the inspector replied letting Notori lead the way. Maru-Maru was a common placeholder name in Japan. In paperwork it was often represented with two circles like so, 〇〇, Maru-maru was literally Circle-Circle

The video would show the naked homeless man covered in some slimy dark substance. He ripped the doors off of the cold storage area. It was impossible. When the man put his hand on the wall it seemed to give off a gas, like an acid was on it.

The man then vanished into the early morning through an emergency exit.

"What the hell is going on?" Kanda asked again. Notori coughed.

"The weirdest thing is yet to come sir. The organs of the man he retrieved the heart and brain but left the rest." Notori looked at the yellow bags that had a black substance in it.

"It's like the substance the man was covered in," replied Kanda. "We may have to call the Fire Department and health services. This man seems to have some sort of disease."

"The National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Ministry of Health has been informed. The ME did it already." Notori stood at the Inspector's side.

"No one this makes sense." Kanda rubbed his hair out of frustration. "A man is shot by police at least six times and is declared dead, his organs are removed and then he gets up looking like some monster from a weird horror movie. I am not sure how in the hell I will explain this to the bosses."

"I don't know where he went," Notori replied. "But I hope he dies of whatever is afflicting him "

"We'll never be that lucky." Kanda rolled his eyes. "I am worried whatever he had is contagious."


(-)

Yasujiro was on a collections run today. He would head back to the office with his earnings. He had stopped in an alley for a break. He was going to get an earful from his boss. He can't collect from a bar that burned down. Yasujiro sighed, he went to reach for his cigarettes and pulled out the pack.

He wished he didn't join the Yakuza as a teenager but it was too late to do anything now. His boss was going to be a pain today.

Yasujiro was about to light the cigarette when he heard the cry of a young child, or what sounded like a kid crying. "HELP!"

Yasujiro spat out the cigarette and ran towards the screaming kid. He heard a barking dog. The screaming voice sound familiar. Yasujiro kept looking for the kid. He heard a barking dog. Where was that kid? He could not place the voice though.

He found a stray dog and the bizarre creature from a few nights before. "Help me! I am not puppy chow!" screamed the creampuff. It saw Yasujiro and jumped towards Yasujiro latching onto his face.

Yasujiro screamed as this little snowball was stronger than he anticipated. Was this like Aliens and he'd have a cute alien burst from his chest? He tried to pry the little thing off of his face as he slammed into walls and poles. He hit some garbage cans and knocked them down. He was trying to pry the creature off his face before it could eat his face or the dog attacked him.

At least the dog was not after him Calumon was scared but happy he was saved. Both Calumon and Yasujiro were screaming.

"Get off of me!" screamed Yasujiro as he flails around.

"No! The dog will eat me!" screamed Calumon.

"Get off!" Yasujiro screamed, using both hands to pry Calumon off of his face. With a couple of jerks, he pried Calumon off his face. Yasujiro panted as the little creampuff was happy.

"That was fun! Again!" Calumon replied. Yasujiro panted and glared at Calumon.

"No, lets not." Yasujiro put Calumon onto the trash can next to him. "So what are you?"

"I am a Digimon." Calumon replied happily. He was smiling ear to ear, which was not hard for Calumon.

Yasujiro was confused, "You mean like the kids' show and the card game?"

"What's a show?" Calumon replied innocently.

Yasujiro sighed, "Well would you like come with me? I can keep you safe from dogs." Yasujiro was worried if he denied this creature a favor it would come in the night and take his soul while he slept. There were many evil yokais in Japanese mythology and this thing, while it may look harmless, was probably far from it. Yasujiro decided if he gave this thing a favor it may not rip his throat out one late night.

Calumon's ears curled and it smiled anxiously. "I would love to come with you Yasujiro!" Calumon exclaimed.

Yasujiro sighed but smiled. "Well come on."

Calumon hummed happily on Yasujiro's shoulder and they went to get more money for Yasujiro's boss.


(-)

In Hakone, Yamaki was convinced he had some kind of cold or flu. He had red eyes and he was itchy. He had been in the sauna but he left sooner than he would have wanted. Reily had been swimming and spending as much time as she could in the hot springs. When she came out she seemed off. But Yamaki could not place it.

His hands hurt and so did his back he was angry that his trip to Hakone was not being ruined by him getting sick. Yamaki coughed deeply.

This was supposed to be the last time with Riley for some time before he was shipped off to South America. Riley would come to his location once Yamaki knew where he was going to end up. It was a bad idea to buy a house in Brazil if he was sent elsewhere.

The bosses were going to keep him guessing. The government was going to force him to resign by giving him a job he hated. Most likely he'd be a business relations secretary, technology representative, or worse a passport agent. Yamaki suspected it would be the bottom one as he loathed the public in general. The public was stupid and for a large part unaware of all the things that could kill them.

Yamki fidgeted with lighter out of compulsion. The metal lighter seemed to be straining under Yamaki's hands not that Yamaki noticed. He flicked it back and forth as he did many times before. But each flick the lighter's lid hinge became weaker and weaker until finally, it shot off across the room and hit the wall.

"Just my luck. What else can go wrong?" Yamaki groaned as he tried to find the lid in the ryokan room of the inn he and Riley were in.

Meanwhile, two black mini-SUVs were going all over Hakone looking for Yamaki. The problem was Yamaki made sure it was a place he could not be easily found. He picked an easy onsen inn to hide in. Sure he used his real name in the guest book but it was an inn off the beaten path. Also, he took out the batteries in his cell phone and pager, that way they couldn't find him. The Hypnos military men were looking for Yamaki but they had a wide net to cast.


(-)

At the Nonaka estate, Rumiko was dead tired as she had just had gotten off a flight without the ability to sleep thanks to that Flemish tourist. Rumiko was on her futon. She rarely worked after a long flight and such a bad press blow up, her agent bumped a couple of days off for her. Rumiko dreamed of her first fashion show. A minor event at a department store it led to her international modeling career.

In another room, Seiko Hata was busy dressing in a bizarre amalgamation of her old school clothes from her youth and her current outfit. The male jacket and hat with the brown sweater and tan slacks.

"God I look weird. But this does feel good. Maybe I can be like those weird anime characters bringing justice to the streets." Seiko laughed. "Oh, they'd laugh their asses off before fighting me."

Seiko imagined the scenario of fighting a mugger and showing off how strong she was. Throwing the bad guy across an alley and saving people that were being oppressed. She could be like Batman! She loved the Adam West show in her youth. She could be the hero that Tokyo needed!

Seiko laughed. God this was silly. She was no Batman she was Seiko Hata, a grandmother and sixties love child but mostly settled in her ways now. But she was not going to be galavanting and fighting criminals on the streets that was silly. But at the same time, it did appeal to her.

If Seiko left, it would be when Rika and Rumiko weren't home. This was the sort of thing she did not want her family to see. She'd turn red from embarrassment. That would be a thing that would make Rumiko question her mother's sanity and Seiko would not blame her.

Still going to the Yakuza district of Kabukichō and knocking some heads sounded fun to her.


(-)

Mifune had gone to the Cabinet Office to prepare an argument that there was a crisis to the Chief Cabinet Secretary. That was his back up plan if the Crisis Control center decided their problem was not a crisis. Izo put a bet that the chances of them giving the go-ahead was below twenty percent.

In the auxiliary command center AKA the room with the big board, Izo and Masao, two department heads, were confused at all the signs of Digimon on the board.

Izo rubbed his black hair, he looked at the image on the board, it had the metropolis of Tokyo and it showed 352 wild ones. Two were in Hakone, two were moving fast along the Nagano Shinkansen line (they stopped at Ōmiya Station and they were proceeding towards Nagano and not up towards Sendai.

"This makes no sense!" Izo growled. "We should be getting reports of monsters widespread. Instead, we're getting sporadic reports. Not mass panic!"

Hara Masao, head of buildings and grounds sighed. "Izo, a lack of mass panic is good for our agency."

"But the pattern on the board does not match the events we're seeing from the field and TV. And with Yamaki, Ohtori, and Onodera away and Mifune at the Cabinet Office, I am running things right now. At least until Mifune returns."

"Or Yamaki or the bridge bunnies." Hara Masao smirked, trying to lighten the situation.

"Well it's not like they're turning people into Digimon that would be bizarre but if they're desperate for a foothold it can't be out of the realm of possibility," Masao said getting up from his chair. "But I am just a building and groundsman despite being a top grade electrical engineer and making the electrical set-up at Tsukuba Science Center's Supercomputer. I just head the department. What do I know?"

Izo groaned, he glared at Masao, "Now?! We need this now?" Izo was not happy with Masao showing his resentment at the constant disrespect the science people gave him and his people. Izo was not in the mood for this at the moment.

"Look you told me that the bio-emergence in this digital field is like a cross between the human and digital worlds and that the fact they are here is because of artificial proteins. What if when the field was forming a computer virus became like a real virus or more conveniently a bacteriophage? They merged, fused or something else happened. Whatever happened it transformed and began to infect people and turn them into Digimon. A slow invasion. Why send a massive force when you can transform the populace?"

Masao shrugged, "Then again I could be completely wrong."

"If it is that I'll pay you 5,000 yen. But I can't see it being that it is too bizarre." Izo replied.

Masao glared, "You refuse to take the bet?"

"No, I'll take it if I win you give me 5,000 yen, deal?" Izo held out his hand Masao shook Izo's hand.

"Deal. But you can't have me be right can you?" Masao put his hands at his waist after the handshake.

"No if it is a virus it is more likely to have been human-caused but then again Yamaki is like Ahab and the white whale regarding Digimon. He'll be destroyed by the Digimon he was fighting." Izo returned to a station and began typing on a computer. Izo laughed.

"You know it would be hilarious if Yamaki got turned into a Digimon. Puts a new meaning to he who fights monsters?"

Masao laughed throwing his head back at the irony that scenario would include. "I bet you if Yamaki got turned into a monster it be that turd Digimon. "

Izo laughed leaning back in his chair. "That I'd pay money for!"

"A virus that turns people into Digimon that would be a thing to see!" Masao laughed.

"A lawyer that was a spider woman!" Izo laughed.

"A deliveryman that's half tank!" Masao giggled.

"A policeman that's a submarine!" Izo cackled.

"God in some way I want to see that but if it were true it would be terrifying!" Masao said between laughing gasps.

"Oh damn, that would be rich." Izo calmed down his laughter.

"Yeah, but if you win don't be an ass about it." Masao pointed at Izo.

Izo pointed back, "Same for you Hara-san."

Masao nodded and began to walk away, stopping to hold back his laughter. Poopmonster Yamaki images filled his head and he could not help but laugh.


(-)

In class 5-2. Takato itched his hand which had grown redder from the morning. Sitting near him Jeri itched her nose and lifted her hair sowing the ears have developed small points. There was nothing noticeable about Kazu and Kenta other than a slight sheen to Kazu's skin and a slight purple tint to Kenta's hair. Nothing else was abnormal about the kids but Miss Asagi was about to let them go for gym class.

Miss Asagi felt like she could show these kids how to be proper mons sooner or later. And they needed a chance to show off their abilities sooner or later.

Nami Asagi shook the oddness of that thought from her mind. She had a class to teach.

On her back, two bumps moved independently without thought. A small part of Nami looked forward to flying again.