DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).
A/N: As we enter a new phase, the format is going to change a bit. We'll still have it from limited perspectives, but now those perspectives will number several per chapter, hence the loss of character titles. It'll be closer to a 'normal' chapter but still with the limited viewpoint. Enjoy!
Cheers again go to Crazyeight for beta-reading.
DIMENSIONS
BOOK SEVEN
Escapes
By Blazing Chaos
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Phase Two
Disappearances
FRIDAY, 13th MAY 2011
Sakura Yuuna
Yuuna Residence, Shinjuku Ward
13:29 JST
With a clunk, the door opened, the Tokyo day bursting into the flat and casting itself across the girl's blue hair. Her eyes gazing in surprise at the new figure creating a shadow at the door, his black hair sitting over his blue eyes like it had simply been dropped without regard to placement.
"Souta, Kohaku Souta, at your service."
"You have no idea how long he's been planning that cheese for." The voice came from a black-bodied and blue-coated demon with red and green gems for his eyes on the ground next to him, pulling a face of disbelief literally with his red nails. "Kuhako 'ere thinks he's some kind of spy."
"Yeah, well I feel like a spy after that stupidly long ride. You hid everywhere!"
"You wanted to be safe."
Sakura finally stopped simply staring at him in amazement that they hadn't gone and arrested him, or worse. The TV made it seem like anyone caught with a Digimon would simply vanish without a trace, and Dracmon was the kind of Digimon you were easily caught with.
Kohaku went to open his mouth again, but was interrupted as arms were thrown around him, the greenish-eyed girl burying her head in his shoulder as he quickly made a sound like he had been winded. She ignored it out of happiness, although let up on her grab slightly, moving her arms down to his waist.
"You're alive, you're alive," she cried, ignoring the rather more fake gagging noises quickly emanating from the boy's partner.
"Geez, it worked too – someone's stupid as hell."
"Still haven't lost the attitude…" Sakura could hear her Floramon mumble.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing."
"Alive and 3500 yen down no thanks to this thing," Kohaku said bitterly as he pulled back, gesturing down with his palm to the creature below. Dracmon shrugged.
"Meh, you're not getting any free rides any more – I told you that."
"Free rides? You stopped on a street corner, made me buy you food, and then doubled my fare!"
"Hey, you wouldn't let a horse go without eating, 'eh?"
Kohaku slammed a hand against his forehead, whilst Sakura couldn't help but chuckle at the sight, her hands still firmly on his sides as she gazed into his blue pupils. Glancing to his lips, she chewed it over, feeling a great unease at the concept of planting hers against them.
A sold out film.
An arrested chef.
A bowling fall in the foot and the subsequent trip to hospital.
A fire alarm in the mall.
A bioemergence in the park.
Soaked to the skin in the muddy countryside.
Power cut before a kiss at Kohaku's.
Those seven fated dates flashed across the girl's eyes in quick succession. She tried to push them away, leaning forward slightly, but her eye caught it, flowing down the side of his face.
That scar.
Their mistake.
Their bad luck.
It made her feel sick whenever she looked carefully at it – not because it was gory, or gross, or even just grotesque, but just…it brought back the memories, the memories of the Devidramon battle. She could now barely remember what he was like without it, even if the only changes to his actual personality had been somewhat swept up in their burgeoning (as it seemed to have stayed ever since then) relationship and his trials in keeping Dracmon in order.
She tried to press it down in her mind once again, but it was too late. Stuff like that – the scar, the memories, the dates – always put her off kissing, and Kohaku had already moved onto other things, seemingly not picking up the signals from her about her intentions. She sighed internally.
"What the hell is wrong with us? With me? Everything seems so bland…what happened to the days when we were always at risk and he nearly d…?"
She shook her head slightly but briskly. She didn't want him to get injured again; it was bad enough the first time. But…the excitement was well and truly gone. Heck, at least the chance that she would have to save his sorry arse had made her eager that he would be alright after the government had begun its crack-down on Digimon Tamers, but his return had made everything seem so…boring.
The excitement was gone.
"What's wrong? You shook your head really randomly there."
"Nothing." "Everything." She could tell he cared about her, wasn't that enough? Or was it nothing compared to those seven dates that forever hung on her mind, those seven marks to their names declaring how much the universe was against their relationship, how little luck they had?
"…okay."
"Even if I did kiss him, I'd probably do it wrong." She knew she'd have more chances in the outside world, but she always felt that everyone was watching, scrutinising, condemning their imperfect relationship when their own ones were probably going swimmingly. In her eyes, any relationship could've worked better than this, even those where both partners spent the whole time endlessly complaining about their marriage. "Lucky bastards...they don't realise what they have…I hate them…"
She sighed mentally; was this the person she had become? Would Kohaku like her if she were this cynical? "Should I cheer up?"
"Are you sure everything is alright Sakura?"
"Yes, it's fine."
"You've been staring at the open doorway for a minute now. I'm sort of afraid of closing it since something outside seems so interesting."
Blushing, Sakura quickly broke from her trance and averted her gaze, wandering towards the sofa in her family's living room. "Can you close it?"
"Uh…okay."
"Geez, she's really gone nuts this t…ow! Hey, what's the big idea?" Dracmon complained, Sakura seeing him trying to glare at her partner evilly yet looking rather unconvincing thanks to his bizarre eyes.
"Shut up."
"God, Digimon really do take on characteristics of their partners. Hey, Kohaku, don't close that door just yet – I've got to get away from ya before I become a crap-faced moron obsessed with bullshit!"
The door clunked to a close regardless of Dracmon's objections, the Digimon simply huffing and rushing across to take up the other seat on the sofa, sitting dead in the middle of the cushion.
"Move over," Kohaku ordered as he reached it, but the 'mon simply stuck out a tongue.
"I got here first – you sit on the floor. You ever heard of equal rights, slave driver?"
"Have you?"
"I saw a TV show on it."
"Yeah, and that makes you an expert."
"Yeah, so we agree – on the floor, Mr Black and Blue."
"Ugh, I thought you'd given up on that nickname."
"1000 yen and I'll stop."
"No way."
"Fine. Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue…"
"Fine, just take it!" Kohaku finally cracked, practically throwing the note at his partner who grabbed it whilst grinning from ear to ear.
He took a deep breath. "Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue…"
"I thought you'd stopped!"
"2000 yen to make me really stop. Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue, Mr Black and Blue…"
"FINE!"
"Woo, 6500 yen!"
"Now can I please have the seat…?"
"That'll be…"
"Oh just have my freaking wallet already," Kohaku groaned, tossing the wallet over to the Digimon who quickly clawed it out of mid air with his sharp claws.
"Hmm, I don't know, this looks like bad stitching…how much refund can I get?"
Getting to his feet, the Tamer simply stared into his partner's eyes, the Digimon having a large scrunched up pile of notes in one hand and the wallet he was inspecting in the other. "Just get up."
"Hmm, and then there's this damage…"
"You caused that when you grabbed it!"
"Yeah, sure, like I believe that."
Kohaku put both palms out in a begging pose to his partner, the Digimon looking rather ridiculous with how little space he took up on the large cushion. "Please, please, please, just move out of the seat. Please."
"Okiedokie."
"What…?" Kohaku stared on, eyes wide and brows high in the air as Dracmon simply hopped aside and onto the floor, smiling as he sat down.
"You didn't say please before."
Sakura watched as her boyfriend slammed his hand into his forehead in dismay, falling into the seat and rolling his eyes heavenwards. "Why me…?" he mumbled, before she gently placed her hand on his, a light smile.
"It could be worse."
"Yeah, I could have kept the seat," Dracmon suggested.
"I think she meant he could be dead."
"Floramon, don't say it so literally," Sakura scolded.
"Yeah…god Kohaku, she's such a bad influence on me!"
"Dracmon, just…shut up."
"Geez, so impolite. Bad kids come from bad parents, don't you know that?"
"I'm not your flipping dad for Pete's sake!"
"Ugh, that makes you my mom. Gross…"
"Anyway," Sakura elongated the sound, making it clear she intended to move on from the increasingly odd topics of conversation before a mental image came up that could never be forgotten even with all the psychiatrists in the world working together. "Did you get followed or anything?"
"Don't think so – I mean, if we did, we'd have turned up here like 'pack your bags quick'."
"Yeah, rather than all that spy crap. Honestly, he spent like, the whole trip thinking of that."
"Right, that's the last time I share any of my thoughts with you."
"Boo-hoo, they're boring anyway."
"Did you see anything?" Sakura asked, Kohaku going to reply before stopping up short, putting a finger to his mouth and gazing skywards.
"Yeah, we did."
"Like what?"
"We saw…the Tamers, and some people who I think were their parents. Oh, and some police, who were trying to arrest them."
"Yeah – some cop tried to play hero and ended up just acting stupid. Was like in that film, Cop Academy."
"Police Academy, and where do you even watch these things?" Kohaku asked his partner, Sakura feeling that once again they were off on a tangent.
"I increased your broadband and television packages to the maximum."
"Did they succeed?" she interrupted.
Kohaku shook his head. "No, the police guy was just trying to book them for speeding at first. They almost did get arrested and caught by his backup, but…"
"I swooped in and saved the day!" Sakura was quickly thankful she didn't live with Dracmon day-in, day-out. How Kohaku was as sane as he was she couldn't even begin to understand.
"By blowing things up."
"The means justified the ends."
Ignoring that Dracmon's statement was both incorrect and nonsensical, she continued in her interrogation, hearing a tone of nerves in her voice as she asked "So…are the authorities after…us?"
Kohaku shrugged, before shaking his head. "I doubt it – even with Sangloupmon's display, there was too much smoke and all from the explosion. Since we haven't been pursued yet, maybe they simply don't want us? Seems like we made the right choice not to associate with them."
"So we're safe?" Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow and hoping dearly such would be the case.
"Hmm…I don't know; this all seems really fishy. Why would they go after their parents but not after us? We have Digimon too, aren't we dangerous?"
"Maybe they just wanted the main group?"
"I don't know. I don't know a lot of things really."
"Yeah, I have noticed."
"I meant about this Dracmon. Maybe we should check online, or on TV? Someone might know something."
"I've been watching TV all the time before you arrived – all that's changed is that there have been arrests, but they won't say who."
"Looks like we're going online then," Kohaku decided, standing up from his seat before pausing with wide eyes. He promptly then slapped himself squarely in the forehead once again.
"What's wrong?" Sakura's voice was packed with the deepest of concern.
"I just realised that I just gave up the seat which I paid like 7000 yen for."
Dracmon grinned from the floor where he continued to count his money, waving it up to him. "Correction: 8029 yen. And a button. And a really, really, really ugly passport photo. Can I burn it? It's scaring me Kuhako…!"
Ai Terada
Terada Residence, Shinjuku Ward
13:29 JST
The walls of the Terada residence couldn't exactly be described as soundproof.
Or childproof, for that matter, since, on this particular occasion, it was to play host to a pair of kids leaning up against one of those very same walls, their ears right to it trying to pick out every last word spoken on the other side.
"I think Mom's mad."
"Shush, quiet Mako, I can't hear!"
"Sorry."
Ai was about to shush her brother again, but the sound of the woman on the other side interrupted, continuing to waft very quietly through the corners of the closed door and far more loudly through one of her ears ear. She pressed it more closely to the wall, the air pushed out of it as it almost felt like it was 'sticking' to the surface.
And what was it they were trying to hear? An argument.
Yet, for once, it wasn't simply explained away as 'mom and dad fighting again'. Indeed, it was the exact opposite, they were arguing together, their voices heightened and outraged by the new voice behind the plasterboard, one which didn't seem to sympathise at all with their point of view as it spoke almost monotonously back.
"What's a consequence?"
"Maybe it's some kind of toy, like sequins?"
"Sequins aren't toys Mako, they're fashion." Not to their mother, of course, who simply complained when they were all over the floor and she had to clean them up. Mako simply shrugged, pushing his head so close against the wall that his neck was bending back.
"Why would they be talking about that?"
"I don't know but mom sounds really upset."
"What happened?"
There was a barking back from their father, even though the words were muffled. "…dare you upset my wife!"
The toneless voice replied uncaringly. "…greater importance of…"
"Ai."
"Mako, I'm trying to hear."
"Where's Impmon?"
"He's…"
Ai withdrew her ear from the wall, looking around their playroom and quickly being left stupefied. "I thought he'd be home by now. He's always off around the city. I wish he's take us with him some times," Mako sighed.
"…Impmon's harmless!" shouted their father loudly, coming around the edges of the door with no need at all for 'spying' as the children had been doing.
"Why are they talking about Impmon?"
The pair of seven year-olds still weren't sure at all what was going on. A few minutes ago, their father had ushered them into the room and ordered them not to leave until they were told to, making them feel like they were still little babies. But, of course, the sight of a lot of people in police clothes like those in their toy box coming in as they were pushed out inevitably drew them to snooping. Unfortunately, they still knew very little about what was going on, their limited vocabulary failing them at the worst of times.
"Maybe he got hurt…" Ai mused sadly.
"Impmon's big and brave, he can take care of himself," Mako said, puffing up his chest in an attempt to imitate how he saw the imp.
"Yeah, he doesn't need our help," Ai added, a smile on her face quickly subsiding as her own words took on a new meaning. In spite of their digivice and emotional support, along with a toy gun, they had never actually done much to assist their purple friend in battle. Of course, that was thanks to the Digimon himself insisting that they stayed away until they were older, but it felt rather odd for the world of Digital battles they heard about on the news to still be as far away as ever. "Hmm…" was her saddened addition.
"What's wrong?"
"Well…if something is going on and Impmon got hurt, I want to be out there to make sure he gets better!"
"Yeah!" A glint of optimism was still in Mako's eyes as he wandered across to the purple digivice unceremoniously laid out on the table. "We're not really little kids anymore!" picking it up, he held it high and mocked sweeping a card through it. "We'd yell 'Digi-Modify' and save the day!"
"Yeah!" Ai secretly hoped that she would be the one to do so. They had a lot of arguments in store in the future over who held the D-Arc when they went into proper battles like the bigger Tamers did.
"Hey, maybe we can find Impmon through this," Mako wondered, looking straight at the screen and pushing random buttons as it cycled through a number of pages. Ai stared over, feeling increasingly impatient and annoyed she wasn't getting a chance to use the device.
"Let me try."
"No, I'm doing it."
"But you haven't found anything!"
"There are just all these speckles."
"Huh? Can I see?"
Mako, oddly, despite his earlier issues with giving her the device, now had no qualms as he passed it into her waiting hands. At first she was ready to gloat about how she now had the D-Arc, but the sight of the screen left her confused.
"What is it?"
Sure enough, it was speckled all over, like when they used to put on the television on the wrong channel, only not so much and not covering the whole screen. The 'cool picture', as dubbed by them, failed t pop up above the device. "I don't know."
"Is it broken?"
"I don't know."
Ai turned it over, peering at the white back but receiving no answers from it. Looking back to the screen, she found no change, Mako scratching his head in confusion.
"I didn't do anything to it…did I?"
It wouldn't have been the first time. The peanut butter incident had nearly given their mother a heart attack at the sight of them putting something electronic in the sink to wash it all off, but the D-Arc itself didn't mind at all. This thing seemed to stand up to absolutely anything.
The thought of their mother made Ai glance up to the door, it now swinging open to reveal their mother, her reddened face instantly diverting the children's thoughts.
"Mom, are you okay?" she asked, the woman wiping a hand across her eye and nodding. Albeit being fairly typical in height for a normal woman, she towered over them, her glasses absent for once and revealing her tear-filled eyes below her neatly short cut brunette hair.
"Yes." Her words were stated, not said, as she quickly moved on and left Ai no time for questions. "I have to talk to you two about Impmon…"
Dracmon
Yuuna Residence, Shinjuku Ward
13:37 JST
"Wow, your web browser is really different to Kuhako's."
"Really? How so?" Floramon asked, Dracmon making a wide gesture with his hands as an oddly innocent expression filled his visage.
"His is packed with links to p…"
Dracmon squirmed quickly as his air was cut off, his mind beginning to wonder if he even needed it in the first place. He tried to knock the hand away from his mouth by scratching it, all the while glaring up at the owner.
"Never mind!" Kohaku laughed nervously, as Sakura raised an eyebrow, spinning back on her chair to face the screen whilst muttering that she really didn't care to know. Floramon shot him and his partner a dirty glare, the black haired boy simply looking guilty.
"Finally!" Dracmon eventually cheered, Kohaku exclaiming his pain in the form of one simple curse.
"Shit!"
"That's what you get for blocking my airways."
"Bloody hell; don't bite the hand that feeds you!"
"Hey, I have tons of money now – I don't need you to buy food for me anymore!" After all, what Dracmon knew from the beginning of this relationship was that he was going to be in control. He'd seen Sakura and Floramon's little back and forth, and didn't like it one bit. How she could allow herself to be treated like that completely beggared belief for the demon. "After all, nothing like being a free 'mon."
"Yeah, tell me that when I come home from school next to find the fridge empty and you begging me to go down the store."
"I can buy that damn store now!"
"With 8029 yen? Someone's delusional."
"Uh…isn't that a lot?"
"To have robbed off you by your own partner: yes. To buy a store with: no."
"Bloody humans, I'll never understand ya." Why wasn't food free anyhow? Didn't they need it? What sort of sick twisted system made one work and pass around bits of paper and metal just to survive?
"It's loaded."
"Huh…what has?" Dracmon was amazed that his Tamer seemed so surprised by Sakura suddenly talking. He made a note not to greet him unexpectedly, lest he have a heart attack.
"No, wait, scratch that – I want to do that now."
"The Digital Watch page about what's going on. While you two were bickering, Sakura was actually doing work."
"Meh, she's just clicking a mouse – I could do that."
"Not without scratching it," Kohaku snidely commented. "Still, I have to say, that took a lot longer than I expected."
"I know – the whole website is crawling along. Tons of people must be accessing it."
Dracmon peered over the girl's blue hair from a new position on Kohaku's shoulder, ignoring his cries of complaint when he did so. The screen was rather bare, the website little more than text. Was it always like this? Or maybe it was just being really slow to load? Maybe this was on purpose? Having followed plenty of internet trends in his bored hours running up huge bills on bandwidth at Kohaku's apartment, he knew just how much a Digg mention, or a meme, or anything like that, could overwhelm a website.
The text seemed to stretch on and on though, the bar at the side of the browser barely a pixel high. Sakura started out gradually scrolling down, but had to pick up her pace to even have a hope of getting to the bottom.
Comment after comment was filled with the same view: what was going on? Some said that it was a government conspiracy; others said that they had actually done it and that they had warned them all from the start that something like this could happen. But, as the page scrolled, reports began to come in.
Battles outside apartment buildings. A police confrontation and two frozen cars before an explosion, one which Dracmon instantly cottoned on to (and felt some pride for bringing about). The park being closed off to all visitors, and plenty of soldiers and police entering.
As little as he cared for the Tamers, indeed, as little as he cared for any human or Digimon at all besides himself, he couldn't help but feel a sense of curiosity about this. Maybe even apprehension.
"Meh, I've got nothing to be afraid of – I'm not stupid enough to sit back and let them hurt my friends. I'll run first."
"This is…bad," Sakura summarised, basically yet accurately. She looked up to Kohaku, Dracmon rolling his eyes. "What do we do?"
"Like he seriously knows a thing. Geez, get a backbone will ya!"
"I…don't know."
"See."
"Is there any mention of you guys?" Floramon's question made Sakura's brow furrow sharply.
"There might be…but I'm not looking through all that!"
"Ugh, illiterates," Dracmon moaned, before gesturing out sharply as Floramon went to scold him. "Press Control and F."
"Uh…okay," Sakura mumbled back, reaching out as the plant Digimon paused. He stuck his tongue out at her, hoping it would teach her for expecting him to never give any good advice. This was something he was good at.
One of many things, of course.
Find: Blue hair
The page flicked up, Sakura looking surprised before she read the references more closely, her companions doing the same. Dracmon scowled – there could be tons of people with blue hair involved.
Find: Scar
Again, nothing.
Find: Digimon
"Oh come on, there'll be billions!" Dracmon exclaimed.
Find: Floramon
No results.
Find: Dracmon
No results.
"Can we go any deeper?" Sakura asked Kohaku, the boy putting his hand on his chin.
"Yeah, like that helps you think."
"I'm not sure…I can't think of anything else unique. This isn't really going to tell us if the government know about our Digimon either."
"Yeah, but I've looked at this site a few times – these guys are everywhere, even if their reports are vague."
"Right now, they are probably paying more attention than ever," Floramon added to the two Tamers' conversation. Kohaku nodded, gesturing to the page again.
"Is that all?"
"I'm not sure – I'll check the home page again," Sakura replied, the cursor flicking across the screen and clicking once again.
404 – Error. Page not found.
"Son of a bitch," Dracmon cursed. "I hate that page!"
"Try reloading it," Kohaku suggested more helpfully.
"No, still nothing," Sakura grimaced as the page simply went blank for a second before returning to the same state.
"Click 'Back'?"
No avail.
"Ugh…looks like the sites down," Sakura sighed, running a hand back through her hair and messing it up somewhat. Even as Floramon spoke, she went to fix it, continuing Dracmon's belief that human girls were far too obsessed with such things. Who were they trying to impress anyhow?
"Was it overwhelmed?" the plant-like Digimon asked.
"Maybe."
"Maybe the government took it down."
Kohaku looked up to Dracmon on his head, an eyebrow raised as he was quickly followed by his girlfriend and her partner in the action. The demon knew that the black-haired boy wanted to scold him, and so also knew that he had thrown him somewhat with yet another good idea.
"And they all thought I was stupid…"
Hideki Ryota
Tachikawa Residence, Minato Ward
13:39 JST
Trigger, known to all in the ignorant outside world simply by his real name Hideki Ryota (or, in some cases, one of a number of aliases), couldn't help but grimace beneath his balaclava. The indignity of standing in this very apartment was grating heavily on his nerves as every second passed. Why was he assigned to this task? Why would the government train up such an elite, intelligent, charismatic and athletic soldier as himself, and then send him in to talk to the morons on the bottom line?
"Where is our daughter?!" This cry came from one Satoe Tachikawa, a woman who in any other circumstance would probably have looked fairly attractive and pretty but right now just looked pathetic to the soldier's eyes, coursed brow pulling down on her red hair.
"As if I would give it away so easily." An unseen smirk crossed his face, it still evident in his voice as he spoke. "That information is classified."
"Bullshit! Where is she?" shouted her husband, Keisuke Tachikawa, a fairly well-built and broad shouldered black-haired man who to anyone else would have seemed like one to avoid antagonising, but to Trigger simply prompted imagination about how easily he would fall to a well-placed punch.
"Or a bullet."
"Like my colleague has said, we are unable to divulge that information," echoed Hideki's colleague, although one would've had a hard time telling them apart. Both wore the same uniform, the same face-covering balaclava, and their voices sounded fairly similar, thanks to both being in the army for so long where the only voice levels were whispering and bellowing. "We have orders to ensure you comply with our instructions."
"Yeah, I heard them – what happens if we don't?"
"Then we will make you vanish too," Trigger said coldly as he raised his gun slightly to intimidate them, ignoring the glare that he knew from experience the other soldier would be giving him. This man was one Takehiko Yuu, better known as Slowarse, someone who Trigger couldn't help but feel was rather too 'nice' for the Special Forces Group, the SFGp. This wasn't a place for softies. Either way, he wouldn't disagree with his comrade – after all, they had to present a 'united front'.
Shock flashed across their faces, before Takehiko gave them the slightly more official line.
"Your telephone calls from now on will be closely monitored, and you have been cut off from the internet. You will be observed regularly and checked on at least weekly."
"This is a free society, we have rights!" the husband insisted. Trigger smirked.
"Not in this situation – military law has a habit of overriding all else."
"We should never have left New York," his wife fretted. "We were protected there."
"Ah yes. Well…'except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.' But, you see, I would count this as a time of public danger…your daughter is a very naughty girl I'm afraid, and her colleagues very much present a public danger. Ah, don't you just adore get-out clauses?" "Finally, my intellect comes in useful." Taking orders was for idiots.
"Regardless…" Slowarse pressed on, his overriding voice conveying how he was completely unimpressed by his colleague's way of putting the news across. Yet again, Hideki knew for sure that his words weren't taken well by his colleague. "If you fail to comply, further sanctions, both financial and penal, will be applied. Regardless, you are not allowed to leave this country or make any moves to contact officialdom; your contact will be via a single phone number which is a privilege which may be withdrawn. Do you understand?"
"No…no…this is ridiculous, you can't treat us like this!" Keisuke objected.
"Do I need to quote the loopholes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? I would like to test my memory," Trigger taunted, before gesturing to the modern television in the living room of the fairly lavishly-furnished apartment, money clearly no issue for this couple and their daughter. "Or would you rather see how low the stakes are for you now? In fact, forget the option – SA, turn on the television."
His colleague's covered head turned to him, before he wandered across to the remote somewhat reluctantly. The television flicked on, quickly bringing up the sight of a news reporter, a pile of papers in his hand.
"The Japanese government have published a new statement regarding the Tamers, two of whom have been named as Chief Suspects in the murder of the Prime Minister Inukai Keishiro."
DC
13:40 JST
"A number of arrests have been made around Tokyo, but the Chief Cabinet Secretary is reassuring residents in the vicinity that there is everything is in order. The majority of suspects are now in custody pending trial."
"Mommy…what is custard tea? It doesn't sound good."
"Quiet DC."
The black-haired and black-clothed child peered to either side, grimacing at how both of his parents seemed more interested in the television in front of them than in answering his questions. His father looked rather pleased with whatever it was saying, however.
"Finally, the bastards making this city hell are pulled in!"
"Don't swear in front of DC!"
Why did they even call him that? They knew his real name, they gave him it, but his father also gave him his nickname, and he never really understood why they had chosen it. All his friends at elementary school used it – heck, he began to think that a fair few of them simply didn't know any better.
"He'll hear them someday, and besides, he doesn't know what they mean if you don't draw attention to them."
"You know that's not true…the Atsuko child down the round constantly spouts language like that, and his father curses constantly – I don't want our son being the same."
"Mom…"
"Not now dear."
Why didn't anyone notice him? Why were they always talking about the seven year old, but never to him? Even the television continued to bark away on its own.
"The international community has expressed a mix of surprise and condolence at the news. The USA has announced that it will be reviewing its policy on Digimon and Tamers…"
Lindsey Campbell
Streets of Manhattan, New York
00:42 EDT
For Daisy, one of the famous Monster Makers, at least amongst the security and technology industries, late nights were not uncommon, and neither was waking up late to catch a taxi into work from wherever she happened to be based in that week. Some days she found herself in the friendly office of The Digital Technology Company in Japan, whilst others she was in the not-so-friendly Tokyo Metropolitan Building in that same country. Even there it was only the rather clinical (and hush-hush) nature of the Hypnos department that prevented it from having the same warm effect on her, and there were plenty of familiar faces there she was always happy to see, not least the Tamers themselves.
She had visited plenty of other countries in her time, however, setting up all manner of systems to combat the Digimon threat, yet always encountered the same issue: trying to ensure that the local governments understood that what they were dealing with were living sentient creatures and not the violent beasts they almost universally had expected. Unfortunately, the extent of success was usually rather less than she hoped, and the newly-formed groups were inevitably left to find out on their own what Digimon really were. Usually after a fair few of the unusual creatures were destroyed without a second's thought.
The second most developed country in terms of digital deterrents was the USA, her birth country. It held a lot of memories too for all of the Monster Makers, not least because it was where they had first been involved in the AI project over at Palo Alto at Stanford University in California, their spiritual home in the fifty states and the place where the other main office of The Digital Technology Company found itself.
On the other coast, the SDCO, the Special Digital Control Organisation, happened to be one of the few SIGINT users whose defences against Digimon had been set up before the Monster Makers had truly gone public, since then they had become an unofficial installation team for the systems. As a result, the protocol somewhat differed from that at Hypnos, and despite a high level of cooperation between the two they had not always seen eye to eye. Ironically, in turn, each had to some extent adopted the other's methodology, SDCO looking into employing Tamers and Hypnos adding EMP bullets to its arsenal, even though many of the prominent staff of each had objected to the confidential proposal. Daisy spent plenty of time working with SDCO, all of the Monster Makers effectively freelancers, and had built up a reputation, like all of them, for being one of the most highly skilled programmers in the whole organisation, an organisation with a great deal more resources allocated to it than the rather more refined Hypnos.
Usually, those 'resources' had a habit of going wrong, hence she was used to late night views of New York with bags weighing heavily under her eyes and her suit not sitting right on her bed-ready skin. Unusually (and unfortunately), this was not one of those times, and this trip was entirely of her own accord.
Thankfully, the downtown street gave her no need to look carefully at the road to check the driver knew of the mythical 'brake pedal'. Street lamps, adverts and security lights outside clubs made everything painfully clear, as the car paused for a drunk or two looking rather unaware of what was going on as they staggered out across in front of them. The taxi driver blared the horn and waved a fist.
Daisy sighed. They continued on down the road, gazing up at the buildings on either side as they delved deeper into Manhattan. Lights rose high in the sky, but the novelty was long old for the woman, much time having passed since the days when as a child she had visited the city for the first time and gawped in wonder at the sight. Every building in the city competed to touch heaven itself, it seemed, defining the term 'skyscraper' as they climbed higher and higher with every new incarnation.
Turning the corner, they found a building that was no exception, even if it wasn't exactly a building yet.
Even in the dark (albeit with all the construction lights it was barely so), she could easily make out the twirling form soaring high into the sky, surrounded by scaffolding like so many buildings in the area. They all ranged in height massively, a race to top out for all of the new buildings on the World Trade Center site. The highest one already looked impressive enough by daylight as glass was in place on many of the lower floors, the skeleton of the building climbing out of it, albeit its pace somewhat slowed on occasions thanks to numerous delays.
This was the Freedom Tower, or, at least, that was how it was unofficially known – its rather romantic moniker had been abandoned in place of a rather more clinical 1 World Trade Center. Nonetheless, it made no difference to how it appeared.
Nonetheless, that was not the reason why she was here. The taxi passed around the edge of the site, reaching a complete building, a more conventional straight-up glass block, albeit with a narrow base. This was 7 World Trade Center, officially the first to be finish rebuilding in 2006 thanks to being separate from the main site.
Unofficially, of course, such was not the case.
Drawing up outside the front, the driver peered back at her, an unimpressed look on his face. "Lemme guess…tab it to SDCO?"
"Go ahead," she said tiredly; just thankful she didn't have to pay herself. Officially, she wasn't meant to get free travel from the organisation since she didn't always work there, but it seemed the taxi drivers were now used to simply assuming that anyone coming to this building, particularly at this hour, was heading for SDCO. There was little reason otherwise to come.
The mild night was topped by a wind which brushed past her ankles, making her shiver somewhat and pull her rather thin jacket closer as she wandered over to the main entrance. This couldn't be May, could it?
Alongside the doors was a small panel, one which left security and IDs completely irrelevant as she looked into it, putting her eye close whilst placing her index finger on a piece of glass below, red light glowing out from both as it scanned across. A whir and a clatter left a small white pass below, before writing burst up on the screen.
ID: Lindsay Campbell. Guests?
Daisy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, the wind," she mumbled as she pressed the zero key on the pad, the revolving door clunking as it unlocked.
Have a nice day.
"Ugh."
Glancing about as she wandered along a hallway several dozen floors up, she couldn't help but feel there was absolutely no difference right now to every day here at the office. And every night, for that matter. There always seemed to be the exact same rather large number of staff doing the exact same amount of work. Usually very little, that was. The building had offices, a gym, several cafeterias, relaxation spots, some of the fastest internet around and beanbags.
It couldn't be more different to Hypnos. Well, apart from one respect.
"Want a coffee?"
Opposite her, hunched over the table of the highest and probably most exclusive eatery in the building with a mug between his hands, was an all-too familiar man. An odd smile contrasted greatly with the worry in his brow and cheeks, a neatly cut flow of brown hair topping his agreeable visage. He spoke in solid tones yet his voice was warm and pleasant, rather like the elusive 'nice boss'.
In other words, completely different to Yamaki.
"I know I should've called before coming up here."
"Never mind that. Did you get any trouble on the way up?"
"No…oddly…I thought everyone here would be at panic stations with everything that's going on."
"Half of them are probably asleep on the job. As for the rest…" the man began, taking a bite from a sandwich which looked rather out of place against the blackness of the windows. "…meditation probably. Just one of our many random clubs."
"This place feels like a university."
"Well, university did make the Digimon in the first place – I figured that was the way to beat them."
"I don't think cannabis and hazing are going to help."
The man chuckled, nodding before raising his sandwich again. He paused. "Sorry, I'm being a pig. I was meant to go home hours ago, but with all this going on doesn't seem like that's an option anymore."
"Never mind."
Finishing the remainder, he spoke as he wiped the crumbs. "So, heard anything from your colleagues?"
"No, the line at their office is dead, and everything else I've tried failed."
"Even with Palo?"
"Babel and Curly are on their way over."
"Remind me to reimburse their flights."
"And my taxi fare."
"I'll post them off to Mr Thompson." He chuckled shortly, before chewing his lip. "Have you heard anything from anything else?"
Lindsey frowned, shaking her head as she could tell what his true concern was. "Nothing from her, no."
The man sighed, frowning even more deeply than she had as he ran a hand through his hair contemplatively. A short grunt was let loose, as he seemed unconvinced by his own words to Daisy's ears. "I'm sure she can handle it herself. I shouldn't worry so much."
"Yes. I'm not so worried about Mari not being able to handle it; I'm more worried about what else might happen with all this going on."
"I heard my bosses have already announced that they're going to rethink, even when we were making so much progress. We had kids lined up, we had ideas and plans…we were even beginning to work out where we'd get the right Digimon from – we were going to move past guns and pain. But now, it's got to the point where the Brits are telling us that everyone's asking them about Ryder, where everyone wants to know just about everything about Mari, and all I can do is pretend that the data will take ages to get out and delay them a bit until the dust clears." The man peered down at the empty packet on the table, crumbs scattered about.
This was such an unusual side to see of such a normally optimistic and inspiring man, and Lindsey couldn't help but feel she didn't like it.
"Right now, I think we just have to take it hour by hour."
Jeff Newman looked up, letting loose a chuckle as he shook his head in disbelief.
"Isn't that always the case in this job?"
Kohaku Souta
Yuuna Residence, Shinjuku Ward
13:50 JST
"Maybe the government took it down."
Had Dracmon really just made that suggestion? Kohaku swung round to stare at him in surprise, something he said finally making a lot of sense and being a lot more than just a computer tip. Thinking about it, it did seem quite inane that this website was still functioning, what with all the speculation it had that it was a cover-up. Even if it wasn't true, that sort of thing could've wreaked havoc for the government, so no doubt they had quite some incentive to fake a bit of downtime.
He wasn't about to say to his partner that it was a good idea, of course. He knew he'd never hear the end of that.
"I suppose so. In which case, we really don't have an option anymore," he mused, looking out to see Sakura's and Floramon's gazes now fixed on his.
"What do you mean Kohaku?" Sakura's voice had a rather apprehensive tone to it as she pulled on her hair nervously. She quickly moved to reset it, something Kohaku felt was quite cute, but decided against mentioning given the rather pressing circumstances. "What option?"
"If we want to know if we're safe from now on, we're just going to have to risk it now and go searching for what really happened," he surmised, the girl not at all looking pleased by the idea as her eyebrows flew up high.
Was he being an idiot? Maybe he was being crazy?
"What?! That's crazy."
Apparently so. And yet, he couldn't help but feel they weren't being told something here, and that, if they waited for anything official to come through (if ever), they could end up losing their partners, or worse. "Dracmon's a pain, but he's the most interesting thing that's ever happened to me."
Reassured of his own scheme, he put his hand on her shoulder, grimacing a lot in the hopes she'd realise the gravitas of the situation through but a frown. "If they won't tell us, we don't have much option. I mean, we want to know what's going on before they start knocking down our doors too."
"Yeah, but…what if we walk right into a trap?"
"Then for an extra 1000 yen I can Black Mind you out of there," Dracmon suggested unhelpfully, Kohaku resisting the urge to cram his hand into his forehead in disbelief. What had happened to the serious, logical side? Or was the government thing simply an extremely bland, bad and humourless joke?
"I'm not paying that, but that would be our safety line if anything were to happen."
"No pay, no save."
This time, lacking any money or even a wallet, Kohaku could only hope that if he just avoided mentioning anything until the problem came up, Dracmon could forget his annoying prices. "I'm not saying you have to come, Sakura – I don't want to risk you if you don't want to, particularly since your parents would kill me." Worst boyfriend ever, for sure. "Where are they, anyhow?"
"My dad's at work and my mom's gone grocery shopping."
"Hmm….I mean, I could send you a message if we do get any real danger so you can get out of…"
He was forced to pause as he felt her hands grip his, her greenish eyes gazing up into his bluish ones steadily.
"I want to come. We've done everything together, and I'm not about to stop that now."
A slim smile graced both of their lips. Sakura leant forward slightly, Kohaku's mind beginning to wander to more tactical measures such as where they could go, what they could do, who might be after them, how they could handle the police, what on earth their parents would say if they were arrested…
"God you're dumb."
"I don't think they'd say the…"
"Just kiss her already and get this crap fest over with. Do you have a litter-box or something I can throw up in?"
Kohaku looked out again, blinking in surprise at Dracmon's unexpected comments. What had happened? Had he missed something? An eyebrow rose, before it hit him like a truck what the demon meant.
Sakura twitched nervously, scratching the back of her head and averting her eyes, now a million miles from his.
"I should really stop letting my mind wander like that…" Kohaku mused, both humans sighing as they caught each other's gaze again, the happiness of the moment now faded and leaving only the bland reality in its place. "Great, so this time it's my fault."
He put out a hand, the girl nodding as he helped her to her feet with a frown. Glancing briefly to the side, he saw Dracmon staring on incredulously. Was he still expecting them to kiss or something? With a mutter of "I'll never understand humans…" he sank away, wandering towards the door. "Come on, let's go already!"
"Uh, I need to get changed still."
Kohaku looked amusingly at Dracmon, eyes widened in sheer annoyance and irritation at this newfound development, one obviously not yet in his understanding of human culture. "Oh come on!"
He glanced to the girl, still in her pale pink pyjama top and bottoms, gracing her form loosely below her neatened hair. She was clearly having a fairly lazy day on her break from school, leaving him with a sight which once upon a time had left him somewhat agitated but nowadays barely registered in his consciousness. The slightest of smiles crept onto his face, for so many reasons, from the sight itself to the pleasure now in his mind at Dracmon's irritation. There was just something so fun about seeing someone so annoying be annoyed…
"8029 yen is a small price to pay."
"Okay, now, you owe me another 1500 for the ride to wherever you're about to go!" the demon ranted, pointing a sharp nail at Sakura. "And if you don't hurry up and get out of whatever the heck you're wearing, I'm doubling it!"
Kohaku's expression fell into one of indignity and embarrassment as he realised the predicament he was in, a sheepish laugh in his voice and a scratch to the back of his head as he turned to the girl, the blush which didn't come from seeing her in her pyjamas instead manifesting now. "Uh…I might need to borrow some money…"
Even if he won a battle, Kohaku knew that Dracmon would always win the war.
"Wow, that's low man…"
Always.
Sachiko Terada
Terada Residence, Shinjuku Ward
13:50 JST
Sheer shock manifested on her face as she stood in the playroom, staring around in horror at the sight, or, rather, the absence of one. Toys were still strewn about, books left half open, and a mess of crayon stains on the wall from a few years back with an ill-advised birthday present for the pair of them.
They were gone.
"Ai…Mako…no!"
Had they been taken? They'd complied with what the soldiers had wanted! How did they even get in? They'd gone…hadn't they?
She'd even been in here to tell them the bad news. They wouldn't be able to see Impmon again – they wouldn't be able to even mention it again. Her husband had assured her that they would get over it, even thought the tears also welling up in his eyes made her feel otherwise. The Digimon may have been a pain at first, perhaps even scary, but he was one of the family, and he protected the pair so much. She was every mother's dream – someone who would be as careful with them as she would be to keep them safe.
Her eyes caught on one particular feature, a number of magnetic letters secured to a whiteboard nearby, their multiple colours spelling (poorly) out a message which was all too clear.
Goone to luk for Impmon.
Luve u x x z
Mako Terada
Streets of Shinjuku, Shinjuku Ward
13:50 JST
The compass on the purple D-Arc swung wildly, the boy concentrating his eyes on it in the vain hope that it would settle on something. Unfortunately, in doing so, he failed to pay attention to what he could've been caring about.
The floor gave way under him, and he fell down, Ai crying out to him as his knees hit the concrete.
Tears lashed in his eyes. They had been running as fast as they could – Ai was only just catching up with him, in fact. Gazing down, he saw red across his leg, not as much as he'd feared but still a fair bit.
For a moment, he wanted to go back to his mother, to plasters, to safety, to hugs and ice. Why were they doing this?
His sister paused to look over him, concern flashing in her eyes. "Are you okay?"
Memories suddenly flickered across his mind of all the times Impmon had said those very words. Of the occasions when they hit a Digital Field while out together, when a Digimon became a bit too rowdy for its own good, and even just when he tripped over just like now. They gave him the strength to fight the pain and push himself back to his feet, wiping those tears from his eyes.
"Yeah…I'll be fine…we have to save Impmon!"
It was what he'd have done for them.
Because they weren't babies anymore.
"We're Tamers."
TO BE CONTINUED…
Heh, hope you enjoyed this glimpse into a fair few lives, and apologies that we haven't yet got back to seeing what's going on with our heroes. We will do in the next chapter though, so stay tuned, or subscribed, or, well, reading. As will become normal from now into the foreseeable future, I'm now going to do another chapter of the rewrite before returning to this. Oh, and, as a heads up – I will be away from Sunday for a week and a half, so there naturally won't be any updates during that time. Hopefully I'll get out another chapter before then, but I've got no promises on that.
If you can't remember who Jeff Newman is, you might want to flick back to Book Four. And every other time that Mari has mentioned him since. Basically, he's her old boss from the days when she worked at SDCO. Also, I invented the Lindsey Campbell name, by the way, since there is no canonical name for Daisy, or Babel too, for that matter.
Until next time…
B.C.