Andre tried to work the soreness out of his shoulder, but his muscles still complained. And worse, all the rubbing against his bandages drove his raw skin to itch. But he sent it to the back of his mind as he and Hagurumon followed the trail through the tall forest back to the village.

Does Braden just… not realize that Digimon are people? Does he still think we're in a video game?

Pondering and fussing with his shoulder, Andre stared at the sky and the clouds building to the east. If weather in the Digital World was anything like weather back home, and Andre had no reason to expect that it was, the rain would come heavy by early afternoon — just in time for his guard shift.

"You are still recovering from a serious injury, Andre," Hagurumon said.

"Yeah, but I still need to talk to him," Andre replied. "We've got, what, half a day before we finally get to check in with Holliday?" He kicked a rock out of the path, bouncing it off the dusty stone wall of the cathedral courtyard.

"I agree that you need to speak to Braden and begin repairing your partnership, but it would be wise to at least eat lunch first. You have been dealing with a lot today."

"Waiting won't make it easier," Andre insisted.

He rounded the edge of the wall and, with no further words, immediately scanned the busy yard for Braden's blue hoodie. There were plenty of shiny-helmed Caprimon across the courtyard — Caprimon dancing, Caprimon gardening, Caprimon lining up for lunch, Caprimon checking the roofs of their huts as the clouds rolled in, Caprimon doing anything a Caprimon might do. But no Braden.

There was, however, a white PawnChessmon directing that particularly giggly Kokuwamon as he flitted up and down the walls of the tower, cleaning the windows. If the forked crack down the back of his helmet wasn't obvious enough, his barking voice made it clear that this was the stodgy, orderly PawnChessmon, not the near-silent one who only really appeared around meal times. Andre marched up to the officious Digimon and stood at attention as best he could.

"Sir! Andre LeDoux reporting, sir!" Andre barked. He knew little about military decorum, but shouting and stiff stances seemed to please the Digimon.

"Suck that gut in, soldier," PawnChessmon ordered, jabbing at Andre's belly with the blunt butt of his spear. Andre complied, puffing his chest out. "Much better. What do you need, soldier?"

"Sir, have you seen Braden, sir?"

"Ah, Murray! He's a hell of a dedicated soldier, unlike most of the men I'm stuck with out here," PawnChessmon said. "He volunteered for a dangerous mission in the northwestern quadrant. Reported signs of a Transmission cult operating out of that ruin up there - he'll be taking my shift. Would you know anything about that?"

"Sir, I do. We eliminated two probable cultists just a while ago. Has he deployed yet, sir?"

"He left a few minutes ago. You could learn from that one, you know? No hesitation. No slouching," he said, again prodding Andre's stomach.

Not going to miss you, asshole. Andre thought, biting his tongue.

"Sir, thank you. That's all. Permission to depart, sir?"

"Dismissed," PawnChessmon said, returning his attention to the Kokuwamon.

Andre turned and marched away, Hagurumon close behind, into the cathedral itself, where he let out a sigh of frustration. He wouldn't be able to deal with the Braden problem until dinner at the earliest. Damn. Absent-minded, he scratched at his shoulder, wincing as the fabric rubbed his raw skin.

"Is your shoulder bothering you, Andre?" Hagurumon asked.

"It's just an itch," Andre said.

"They may have something to help in the sick room," Hagurumon said. "I will save us a spot in the line for lunch."

"I'm not…" Andre started to say 'hungry,' but an ache in his stomach dissented. He sighed. "Alright, sounds good."

"Please do not take too long," they said. "It will be difficult for me to carry two bowls."

"Sure," Andre said, turning and walking up the aisle.

He eased the door of the sick room open, hoping for one of the Digimon who knew its contents would be there. But he had no such luck, and resigned to search, he closed the door behind him with a sigh.

"Maybe there's calamine lotion in one of these kits," he said, crossing the room. He pulled one of the many army-green boxes from the shelves and set it on the ground, picking through pills he didn't recognize, bottles with caps for hypodermic needles, bandages… nothing he could pick out as an itch remedy. He bundled everything back into the box and, frustrated, stuffed it into the tightly packed shelf. At the far end, another metal box fell to the ground with an echoing clatter, spilling its contents across the floor.

In one of the beds, Gaomon shot up, eyes wide, scanning the room. But his expression quickly fell from sharp to wobbly. He braced himself against the bed.

"Hey, hey, it's okay Gaomon," Andre said, crossing the room. "Just me, sorry. Are you okay?" Andre rested a hand on Gaomon's shoulder, steadying him. Gaomon took a moment to respond, but he nodded.

"You're walking around," he said, faint but happy, lying back down. He yawned as Andre pulled the red velvet blanket up over him.

"Yeah, I'm a lot better," Andre said, voice hushed. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired. Sore. Kind of nauseous," Gaomon said. "Better, though. Especially knowing you're up. Are you well enough for guard duty today?"

Guilt pricked at the back of his mind.

"Yeah, I should be," he said. No reason to worry him before I know what's happening. The thought comforted Andre; whether it was true or not, he wasn't sure.

"Good. The Kokuwamon have told me about what you've been doing to keep the village safe. It's… thank you," he said. "Just, thank you for protecting the Caprimon. And Carmen. You're really brave."

Andre forced a smile, pushing past the urge to curl up and hide under a bed. He was good at making smiles pass for genuine when he felt like a spider watching the boot fall; this wasn't too different.

"It's… I want to get home to my mom," he managed. "I don't want to be a burden while I'm here."

"Carmen used to talk like that too," Gaomon said. "You're a lot like her, you know? You're both really brave and kind. And you're always helping people."

Andre looked away, feigning bashful as kindness stung like cruelty.

"I mean it," Gaomon insisted. "All Carmen asked for was guard duty, but that wasn't enough. You made all these blankets, too. I'm glad the extra medicine got you up quicker."

Andre turned.

"Extra medicine?"

Gaomon cocked his head.

"Don't you remember?" he asked. "You were awake when I gave it to you. You were saying something that didn't make sense, but I thought that was just the fever."

The doppelganger with the stars… yeah, I don't really have dreams that weird and symbolic.

"You said I needed it more than you," Andre said. "Did you give me your dose of that plant medicine stuff?"

Gaomon smiled and nodded.

"You could have died. I'll get better on my own," he said.

That's what everyone else had said, too. So Andre supposed it made sense. Giving up medicine, staying sick longer to make sure someone else wouldn't die — he could see the logic. And Guardromon was much stronger than Gaomon. His role guarding the village would be taken care of, better than he could. Everything lined up, reasoned out, well-considered, elegant in a way Andre could respect, bought for the meager price of temporary suffering. But it didn't sit right. It left Carmen worried and distracted. And it worried Andre, too — why pretend?

Who am I to tell him what to do? Especially when he's sick. That won't help.

"Anything I can do to help you get better?" he asked instead.

"I'm a little hungry," Gaomon allowed.

"I'll grab you something. Hagurumon's holding my place in the lunch line anyway." Andre turned for the door. Behind him, Gaomon gave a broad smile and tucked himself deeper under his blanket.


Two bowls of a thin but richly spiced meat-apple stew in hand, Andre pushed his way into the sick room, Hagurumon close behind, to find Carmen sitting at Gaomon's bedside. Gaomon was sleeping, and craned over him, Carmen stroked his head, a mournful expression upon her face.

She turned to look at Andre. But she said nothing.

"Uh, he asked for some food…" Andre began. "Bad time?"

"You're fine," she sighed, standing. Andre offered her the spare bowl of soup, which she set on the table next to Gaomon's bed, for when he woke up.

"Hey, I'm sorry about… well, bearing bad news," Andre said. "And everything, I guess."

Slowly and deliberately, Carmen checked that Gaomon was tucked in properly.

"I don't hold it against you, if that's what you're worried about," she said. "I still haven't… it's a lot. That's all."

"You have our condolences and our support," Hagurumon said.

"Thanks. Really, the waiting's the worst part. I hate waiting," she said. Then, she perked up somewhat. "Actually, I'm glad I found you. There's something else on that disk — you should follow me downstairs."

Andre and Hagurumon nodded, and Carmen led the three out of the sick room. Andre, bringing up the rear, was sure to close the door slowly and quietly behind him.


In her bunker, Carmen flicked on the main monitor and sat in her chair, beckoning Andre and Hagurumon toward the screen; they sat their soup bowls on her desk. The terminal window starting up the chat program showed some eleven and a half hours remaining, Andre noted. But Carmen paid it no mind, instead loading the strange floppy. She also pulled up another terminal and typed in a few commands.

"Check this out," she said, pressing enter. Two icons popped up in the directory, both simplistic line drawings. The first was orange and looked like the sun or a compass. The second, gray, a cross shape with triangles around it.

"What are they?" Hagurumon asked.

"No clue. I can't see the filetype, so I'm not sure how to open…"

Carmen stopped, eyes fixed on the gray symbol on the screen.

"Weird," she said under her breath, scratching at the screen with a fingernail. "That's… is that glowing?"

Andre noticed the same - it was brighter than the white of the screen around it, getting brighter by the second. And then came the rumbling deep in Andre's pocket. He pulled out his Digivice, which was vibrating hard. The screen glowed with a gray light - the same gray coming out of the computer screen. As he brought it closer, the Digivice glowed brighter. He looked to Hagurumon, whose expression conveyed a shrug.

"It seems the reasonable conclusion," Hagurumon said. Steeling himself, Andre raised the Digivice to the monitor. The glow and the vibration grew stronger; Andre's hand felt numb, like he was holding a sander. He held it closer, closer to the screen, right over the icon.

And then it stopped. The Digivice was still, and the monitor looked plain as ever.

"That cross is gone," Carmen said. And indeed it was, absent from its place next to the sun/compass. She tabbed over to her terminal and started repeating commands. As she did, Andre turned the Digivice over and looked at the screen. In the top right corner, blinking, he saw two cruciform icons.

"Uh, I think I found it," Andre said.

"May I?" Carmen asked, holding her hand out. Andre gave her the Digivice, which she regarded with intense focus.

"My computer shouldn't be able to transfer data like that," she said. "But here we are. No password, no permissions, no nothing. That's… that's kinda scary, honestly."

"Maybe it's Bluetooth?" Andre suggested.

"People actually picked up on that protocol? My mom used to say it was super insecure," Carmen said.

"Yeah, a lot of stuff uses it," Andre said. "But usually there's this whole pairing thing when you first set it up, and I don't really know the details."

"Yeah, that doesn't seem right either," Carmen said. She paused for a moment in thought. "Hey, would you mind if I made a backup copy of this floppy? I want to see if I can figure out how Holliday did half of this stuff, once this is all over. Especially those hidden files."

"It would be useful for us to have a backup copy as well," Hagurumon said.

"Good thinking," Carmen said, handing the Digivice back to Andre. "For all we know, this program I'm booting could turn my computer into a Digimon and make it eat the disk."

Andre squinted at her suggestion.

But Holliday pulled you into a computer-world-thing full of monsters and turned your phone into… whatever this thing is. Weirder things have happened.

He looked at his Digivice again, wondering at the little icons. The screen had a few stuck pixels, he noted — they hadn't been there that morning. But moreover, he noticed the time.

"Hey, Carmen, I should go," Andre said. "Guard duty coming up."

"Sure," she said. "Come find me after dinner and I'll get you set up."

"Thanks," he said, idly scratching his shoulder. It stung a little, but he didn't mind. Not really.


Thanks as usual to plot consultant AgentOrangeJuice and to ThereBeWhalesHere.