Chapter 3- Awakenings in the Mind
Warmth. I'm warm. And wrapped in a blanket. Well, that sure makes a nice change. Where am I, anyway? Her eyes blinked open. The first thing she saw was a slender hand, bandaged and resting on the corner of a blanket. Behind it, a fire flickered in a huge stone fireplace. She frowned. Whose hand is that? She tried to move her fingers, and the hand's fingers twitched. Oh...I guess it's mine. Now I feel dumb...
The hand wasn't moving properly, and she frowned harder and pulled it back under the blanket, massaging it with her other hand to bring the feeling back to it. If the pins and needles running up and down it were any clue, it had fallen asleep. She tried to sit up, and gasped for breath as stars danced in front of her eyes. Her hands flew to her head, and she felt a bandage on her right temple. Lying down again, she muttered something rude and rubbed at her eyes. How long have I been lying here?
"Well, hello, little one. I was wondering when you'd wake up."
Her hands flew away from her eyes, and she stared up into a huge, round white face, looking down at her from a few feet above her head.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
She threw up her hands to protect herself, burrowing beneath the blanket. A chuckle of maternal laughter came from above her, and she paused in her attempts to hide and peeked timidly from under the hem of the woolly blanket. The huge white face was still there, and it was smiling at her. Cautiously, she allowed her eyes to travel downward. The face was attached to a matching huge white body, which was attached to huge white arms and legs, which sported huge white paws. One of the paws was holding something that was neither huge nor white, but which *was* a pottery bowl steaming even in the warm air and smelling like heaven to her poor empty stomach.
"Is that for me?" she blurted, hunger doing what common courage hadn't to make her bold. The huge white thing chuckled again.
"Yes, little one, it is for you. Calm down and I may give it to you. I don't want you getting sick from eating on a worried stomach."
Immediately, she scooted into a sitting position, wrapping the blanket around herself.
"I'm calm! See? I'm very calm. I'm calmer than a..." she paused, trying to think of a good simile, came up with nothing and barreled on. "...than a lot of things, none of which I can think of right now, but which are undoubtedly all extremely calm. And very hungry. Like me."
"You are an engaging little thing, aren't you?" the white thing said fondly, and settled itself on the floor next to her, placing the bowl in front of her. "Go ahead, sweet, eat. Take it slowly, though. Don't rush yourself." She needed no encouragement, and made a sizable dent in the bowl's contents, which seemed to be a sort of fish stew. It would have been delicious under any circumstances, and in these it tasted like ambrosia of the gods. Her white nursemaid seemed pleased by her good appetite, and made no attempt to distract her with conversation.
Once she had answered the urgent call of her stomach, she took a few minutes to look around. She was in a large stone hall, built of gargantuan blocks of gray stone and made cheerful by colorful hangings and detailed woodwork and carvings. Warm golden light from the comfortably burning fire in the great fireplace behind her lit it with a friendly glow, softening the stark color of the stone. Opposite her she could see the huge wooden door she'd fallen through the-day? night?-before, now closed against the storm she could faintly hear raging outside.
Her memories of her arrival were seeping back to her now. She'd been out there, in the cold white... She shivered in memory, and the white being turned to look at her, an expression that passed quite well for concern in its round black eyes.
"Are you alright, little one?"
She nodded. "I'm fine. Just remembering..." After a pause, she said softly, "You saved me, didn't you?"
"I wouldn't call it that," the white thing said good-naturedly. "I'd say you pretty well saved yourself, braving that storm out there like you did. You did some nasty things to your paws, there. You're a tough little creature, for all you haven't any fur. What are you, anyway?"
She opened her mouth to answer, then froze. "I-" Pausing, she searched her memory, blinked, and searched again. Nothing. A third and fourth try, and still nothing. Her eyes widened suddenly, and a wave of sick horror washed over her as the nervous feeling that had been niggling at her shoved open the door and presented itself in all its incomprehensible glory.
There was nothing to search. Her memory stretched back into the white, faded, and vanished into a cloud of confusion.
She didn't know who she was.
"I...I don't remember..." she choked, feeling lost, cut adrift on a cold stretch of nothingness. She was falling, with nothing to hold on to, nothing to catch at to slow her fall...
Something soft and warm and furry wrapped around her, anchoring her in the here and now. She was not falling, she reminded herself. She was right here, in the hall, and the big furry white thing was hugging her. Wrenching herself back to the present again, she looked up into the kindly face.
"You poor sweet," the white thing said. "Not even a name?"
She shook her head, wordlessly miserable. It gently patted her back.
"Well, then we'll just have to choose you one, won't we? Let's see, you came in out of the storm... 'Storm'?"
She shook her head again, this time hard.
"Uh-uh."
"Well, is there anything you remember?" it said, as kindly as possible. She thought for a minute, her eyes closed.
"White," she finally said, opening her eyes. Her nursemaid blinked.
"White?"
"White," she repeated, more firmly this time. "I was cold, and there was white everywhere. And then I saw the lights, and I went towards them, and got here."
The white thing let out a surprised laugh. "Oh, the snow! Of course..."
"Snow?" she asked, interest in her voice. It nodded.
"Yes, snow. It's frozen water, and it falls from the sky and covers everything. We're having a snowstorm right now, in fact. It's very pretty afterwards, as long as you're not out in it."
"'Snow'..." She pondered the word for a long moment, then smiled. "That's what I remember, so that's what I'll be. Snow."
The white creature chuckled again. "Beautiful. So, you're to be called Snow then. All right, Snow, may I ask if you're going to finish your yuli?"
"My what?" Snow said, confused. Her white guardian gestured toward the cooling stew, and she nodded. "Oh...the fish. Is the fish called that, or the stew?"
"The stew," the creature said, smiling.
"Okay. Got to remember that, so I can ask for it again. Yuli. Right." She glanced up at the white creature. "As long as I'm learning names, what are you called?"
Another warm smile crinkled the creature's furry face. "I am a Frigimon, sweet."
"Uffrigeemon? Is that your name?"
"No, I'm a Frigimon. A Frigimon is a type of Digimon, suited to live in cold temperatures. We're all Frigimon here at Fort Winter, except for a few Gabumon, of course."
Snow blinked. Her head was beginning to spin. "Okay, Digi-who? Frijja-what? Goober-which? I'm lost..."
The Frigimon chuckled. "Not 'Goobermon', Snow. 'Gabumon'. Gabumon are a type of Digimon as well. They attack with Blue Blaster. Digimon is short for digital monsters, and all the Digimon live in the digital world, or Digiworld. Gabumon Digivolve into Frigimon, which attack with Sub-Zero Ice Punch, and many of both species now live in this fort, Fort Winter, in the icy northern part of the Digiworld."
"And a partridge in a pear tree," Snow said, grinning, then paused and tried to remember where she'd learned the phrase. The answer didn't come. She decided not to think about it right then, and went back to her original pursuit. "That's all very nice, the Frigimawhoosit and all that stuff, but you still haven't told me your name."
The Frigimon frowned. "I don't suppose I really have a 'name', exactly. I do have a sort of nickname..."
"Okay, that would do fine," Snow said eagerly. "What is it?"
"It's 'Bella'," the Frigimon said. Snow nodded.
"Then that's what I'll call you. Thank you for saving me, Bella."
Bella smiled. "I repeat, it was your strength that saved you, Snow. I only shooed the menfolk away and brought you over to the fire."
"And wrapped me in a blanket, and brought me some..."
"Yuli?"
"Yeah, that was it. And helped me find a name."
Bella gave her a long look. "Well, you have a name now, little one, but no place. I may be able to help with that, too. Would you like to look around?"
"You mean a tour? Of Fort Winter? I'd love it!" Snow said happily. The fort seemed like a cheerful place...almost like a home. Who knew, she thought, perhaps one day it would be home. Her home...
Getting to her feet, she tottered for a moment on feet sore and numbed by repeated freezing and thawing, wrapping the blanket around her waist like a trailing skirt to keep her legs warm. She took a few teetering steps, then yelped in surprise as Bella swung her up onto her massive furry shoulder. "A bird's eye tour for our newest friend," Bella announced, and headed off down the hall.
* * * * *
Tai sighed, erasing a bit of the scribble he was working on and redrawing it more carefully, a moody look on his face.
"Your artwork's improved."
"Matt!" Tai hurriedly shoved the piece of paper into his desk. "When did you get here?"
"Your sister let me in. I wanted to see how you were doing." Matt sat on the edge of Tai's bed. "Like I said, your artwork's getting better. I remember that map you drew..."
Tai snorted. "It was a perfectly good map! I could read it just fine."
"Nobody else could. It looked like a tarantula got squashed on it. At least I can tell what that is." He gestured in the direction of the desk. Tai sighed.
"Aw, man...I was hoping you wouldn't."
"Too bad...you're not the dude of doodles you once were, Tai. I'm afraid your scribbles are no longer...scribbles. Here, let me see."
Tai reluctantly drew the paper out of his desk and handed it to Matt, who turned it over in his hands. It was smudged, and the dimensions were off, but it was unmistakably a sketch of Sora. Looking up at his friend, Matt sighed.
"You really have it bad, don't you, dude? How many days has it been?"
Tai put his face in his hands. "Four. Four days..." He raised his fear-filled eyes to meet Matt's gaze. "What if she's really gone, Matt? What if she's out there somewhere, lost, or hurt, or...or..." His voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard. "And I can't help her! I can't do a thing!"
Matt reached out and patted his shoulder. "It's rough...we're all scared, Tai. But about the helping thing..."
Tai frowned. "What about it?"
"Well...Izzy went over to the Takenouchis' apartment the other day, and he just called me and said he'd discovered something: something important. Wouldn't explain over the phone, but he sounded really excited. He said for me to get you and Kari, then meet the others at the computer lab. TK and Kari already left; he told her the minute we got in the door, and she wouldn't wait."
Tai leapt to his feet. "Let's go!"
"There's my old friend Tai!" Matt said happily. "Right, let's get moving!"
* * * * *
"...so I brought my Digital scanner, just in case, and you won't believe what I found! There's a sensor anomaly of epic proportions, right in the middle of the Takenouchis' computer room! The readings were off the charts!"
"Well, what was it? And in normal English, please," Matt insisted. Izzy blinked.
"Hey, I was getting there, Matt. There seems to be a sort of cross-dimensional post-incident trace-level remnant disturbance in the Takenouchis' apartment!"
"A what?" every human and Digimon in the lab but him exclaimed. He sighed.
"It's as though someone punched a hole in the space-time continuum, right through to another dimension, and it hasn't quite healed over yet. There was still a...a trail, sort of, that I could scan and follow, and so I did." He looked solemnly at the others. "It leads directly to a northern sector of the Digiworld. And judging from the degree of deterioration, it was opened the night Sora disappeared."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Davis exclaimed. "Let's go there and find her!"
"It's not that simple, Davis," Izzy explained. "The disturbance caused by the force required to rip such a hole, as well as the influence of the closing hole itself, has disrupted the fabric of time and space for miles around the entrance and exit sectors. If I try to open a Digiport into the area for all seven of you, anything could happen! You all could be swept away, or sent to the wrong place, or the computer might just up and explode. Furthermore, I would be almost unable to communicate with you once you arrived there, if you even did."
"Is there any way you can get just one person there?" Tai asked, quietly but with a resoluteness behind every word that was startling for a boy his age. Everyone looked up; he had hardly spoken since he'd arrived. Izzy frowned.
"Hmm...I suppose I could rig a reinforced Digiport for just one person, but with all the residual turbulence from the dimensional rip it would be a rough ride. There's an incredible chaos factor in that thing, even days after it was created. Prolonged passage through one of them could probably ki-" Izzy broke off at the look on Tai's face. "Ah...well, then...yes, I think I could get one person there... But there's still the problem of communication. Any emails you sent me would have only a one-in-fifty-seven chance of getting through, at best, and visual contact would be out of the question."
"Then I'll just send whatever message I want to get to you fifty-seven times," Tai said, already reaching for his jacket.
"Uh, Tai, that's not quite how it-"
"How soon can you get this reinforced portal set up?"
"Well..."
Tai strode over to stand in front of Izzy, looking him straight in the eyes. "Look, Izzy, you said that rip thing was dangerous. Well, that means Sora could be lost, or even hurt out there, and with all this disturbance she can't get back. If there's even the smallest chance I can go and get her, I'm not going to stand here and worry about visual whatever-it-is. So get cracking on that portal, okay?"
Izzy looked long and hard at the expression on Tai's face, then nodded. "Right. I'll get on it." He turned to the keyboard, but paused. "What time do you want me to pick you up?"
"What?"
"I already said we won't have much chance at communication, so we'd better set up a preordained time and place for me to open the return portal. You go find Sora, bring her there, and wait. I'll work on doubling the reinforcement to carry two people while you're gone. I'm sure I can figure it out, with Yolei's help. That is, if she doesn't mind." Yolei shook her head. "Great, then we're set. Well?"
Tai thought for a minute. "Give me three days. That should be enough."
"Right, three days, then. I'll drop you at the same place the rip came out, and we'll call that the pickup spot, too."
"Sounds good. Who's going to cover for me?"
Matt shrugged. "We could stage another camping trip."
"It's twenty degrees outside, Matt," TK protested.
"Well, then we could say you're staying at our place. My dad's out of town for a few days, he'll never have to know."
"It's not great, but it should do. I'll run home and ask my mom if I can spend the weekend at your house. I'll try and drop a hint that you're being supportive of the whole Sora thing by letting me spend some time talking about it-she'll sucker for it. Then I'll pack and be down here."
"Got it. And, Tai?"
"Yeah, Izzy?"
The computer whiz looked up from his monitor. "Pack warmly. This place is colder than a supermarket fish freezer, and twice as icy."
Tai swallowed hard at the thought of Sora, stranded in the snow.
"Right..."
_____________________
Well? How'm I doing? Please, folks, review! My ego needs inflating! M_~* (What, did you really think we authors ask for reviews so we'll know what to write next?! Heheh...joudan da yo. -Just kidding.-) Oh, yeah, and I don't own Digimon. If I did, Taiora and Takari would have survived Ep. 50, natch. M_~*
Warmth. I'm warm. And wrapped in a blanket. Well, that sure makes a nice change. Where am I, anyway? Her eyes blinked open. The first thing she saw was a slender hand, bandaged and resting on the corner of a blanket. Behind it, a fire flickered in a huge stone fireplace. She frowned. Whose hand is that? She tried to move her fingers, and the hand's fingers twitched. Oh...I guess it's mine. Now I feel dumb...
The hand wasn't moving properly, and she frowned harder and pulled it back under the blanket, massaging it with her other hand to bring the feeling back to it. If the pins and needles running up and down it were any clue, it had fallen asleep. She tried to sit up, and gasped for breath as stars danced in front of her eyes. Her hands flew to her head, and she felt a bandage on her right temple. Lying down again, she muttered something rude and rubbed at her eyes. How long have I been lying here?
"Well, hello, little one. I was wondering when you'd wake up."
Her hands flew away from her eyes, and she stared up into a huge, round white face, looking down at her from a few feet above her head.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
She threw up her hands to protect herself, burrowing beneath the blanket. A chuckle of maternal laughter came from above her, and she paused in her attempts to hide and peeked timidly from under the hem of the woolly blanket. The huge white face was still there, and it was smiling at her. Cautiously, she allowed her eyes to travel downward. The face was attached to a matching huge white body, which was attached to huge white arms and legs, which sported huge white paws. One of the paws was holding something that was neither huge nor white, but which *was* a pottery bowl steaming even in the warm air and smelling like heaven to her poor empty stomach.
"Is that for me?" she blurted, hunger doing what common courage hadn't to make her bold. The huge white thing chuckled again.
"Yes, little one, it is for you. Calm down and I may give it to you. I don't want you getting sick from eating on a worried stomach."
Immediately, she scooted into a sitting position, wrapping the blanket around herself.
"I'm calm! See? I'm very calm. I'm calmer than a..." she paused, trying to think of a good simile, came up with nothing and barreled on. "...than a lot of things, none of which I can think of right now, but which are undoubtedly all extremely calm. And very hungry. Like me."
"You are an engaging little thing, aren't you?" the white thing said fondly, and settled itself on the floor next to her, placing the bowl in front of her. "Go ahead, sweet, eat. Take it slowly, though. Don't rush yourself." She needed no encouragement, and made a sizable dent in the bowl's contents, which seemed to be a sort of fish stew. It would have been delicious under any circumstances, and in these it tasted like ambrosia of the gods. Her white nursemaid seemed pleased by her good appetite, and made no attempt to distract her with conversation.
Once she had answered the urgent call of her stomach, she took a few minutes to look around. She was in a large stone hall, built of gargantuan blocks of gray stone and made cheerful by colorful hangings and detailed woodwork and carvings. Warm golden light from the comfortably burning fire in the great fireplace behind her lit it with a friendly glow, softening the stark color of the stone. Opposite her she could see the huge wooden door she'd fallen through the-day? night?-before, now closed against the storm she could faintly hear raging outside.
Her memories of her arrival were seeping back to her now. She'd been out there, in the cold white... She shivered in memory, and the white being turned to look at her, an expression that passed quite well for concern in its round black eyes.
"Are you alright, little one?"
She nodded. "I'm fine. Just remembering..." After a pause, she said softly, "You saved me, didn't you?"
"I wouldn't call it that," the white thing said good-naturedly. "I'd say you pretty well saved yourself, braving that storm out there like you did. You did some nasty things to your paws, there. You're a tough little creature, for all you haven't any fur. What are you, anyway?"
She opened her mouth to answer, then froze. "I-" Pausing, she searched her memory, blinked, and searched again. Nothing. A third and fourth try, and still nothing. Her eyes widened suddenly, and a wave of sick horror washed over her as the nervous feeling that had been niggling at her shoved open the door and presented itself in all its incomprehensible glory.
There was nothing to search. Her memory stretched back into the white, faded, and vanished into a cloud of confusion.
She didn't know who she was.
"I...I don't remember..." she choked, feeling lost, cut adrift on a cold stretch of nothingness. She was falling, with nothing to hold on to, nothing to catch at to slow her fall...
Something soft and warm and furry wrapped around her, anchoring her in the here and now. She was not falling, she reminded herself. She was right here, in the hall, and the big furry white thing was hugging her. Wrenching herself back to the present again, she looked up into the kindly face.
"You poor sweet," the white thing said. "Not even a name?"
She shook her head, wordlessly miserable. It gently patted her back.
"Well, then we'll just have to choose you one, won't we? Let's see, you came in out of the storm... 'Storm'?"
She shook her head again, this time hard.
"Uh-uh."
"Well, is there anything you remember?" it said, as kindly as possible. She thought for a minute, her eyes closed.
"White," she finally said, opening her eyes. Her nursemaid blinked.
"White?"
"White," she repeated, more firmly this time. "I was cold, and there was white everywhere. And then I saw the lights, and I went towards them, and got here."
The white thing let out a surprised laugh. "Oh, the snow! Of course..."
"Snow?" she asked, interest in her voice. It nodded.
"Yes, snow. It's frozen water, and it falls from the sky and covers everything. We're having a snowstorm right now, in fact. It's very pretty afterwards, as long as you're not out in it."
"'Snow'..." She pondered the word for a long moment, then smiled. "That's what I remember, so that's what I'll be. Snow."
The white creature chuckled again. "Beautiful. So, you're to be called Snow then. All right, Snow, may I ask if you're going to finish your yuli?"
"My what?" Snow said, confused. Her white guardian gestured toward the cooling stew, and she nodded. "Oh...the fish. Is the fish called that, or the stew?"
"The stew," the creature said, smiling.
"Okay. Got to remember that, so I can ask for it again. Yuli. Right." She glanced up at the white creature. "As long as I'm learning names, what are you called?"
Another warm smile crinkled the creature's furry face. "I am a Frigimon, sweet."
"Uffrigeemon? Is that your name?"
"No, I'm a Frigimon. A Frigimon is a type of Digimon, suited to live in cold temperatures. We're all Frigimon here at Fort Winter, except for a few Gabumon, of course."
Snow blinked. Her head was beginning to spin. "Okay, Digi-who? Frijja-what? Goober-which? I'm lost..."
The Frigimon chuckled. "Not 'Goobermon', Snow. 'Gabumon'. Gabumon are a type of Digimon as well. They attack with Blue Blaster. Digimon is short for digital monsters, and all the Digimon live in the digital world, or Digiworld. Gabumon Digivolve into Frigimon, which attack with Sub-Zero Ice Punch, and many of both species now live in this fort, Fort Winter, in the icy northern part of the Digiworld."
"And a partridge in a pear tree," Snow said, grinning, then paused and tried to remember where she'd learned the phrase. The answer didn't come. She decided not to think about it right then, and went back to her original pursuit. "That's all very nice, the Frigimawhoosit and all that stuff, but you still haven't told me your name."
The Frigimon frowned. "I don't suppose I really have a 'name', exactly. I do have a sort of nickname..."
"Okay, that would do fine," Snow said eagerly. "What is it?"
"It's 'Bella'," the Frigimon said. Snow nodded.
"Then that's what I'll call you. Thank you for saving me, Bella."
Bella smiled. "I repeat, it was your strength that saved you, Snow. I only shooed the menfolk away and brought you over to the fire."
"And wrapped me in a blanket, and brought me some..."
"Yuli?"
"Yeah, that was it. And helped me find a name."
Bella gave her a long look. "Well, you have a name now, little one, but no place. I may be able to help with that, too. Would you like to look around?"
"You mean a tour? Of Fort Winter? I'd love it!" Snow said happily. The fort seemed like a cheerful place...almost like a home. Who knew, she thought, perhaps one day it would be home. Her home...
Getting to her feet, she tottered for a moment on feet sore and numbed by repeated freezing and thawing, wrapping the blanket around her waist like a trailing skirt to keep her legs warm. She took a few teetering steps, then yelped in surprise as Bella swung her up onto her massive furry shoulder. "A bird's eye tour for our newest friend," Bella announced, and headed off down the hall.
* * * * *
Tai sighed, erasing a bit of the scribble he was working on and redrawing it more carefully, a moody look on his face.
"Your artwork's improved."
"Matt!" Tai hurriedly shoved the piece of paper into his desk. "When did you get here?"
"Your sister let me in. I wanted to see how you were doing." Matt sat on the edge of Tai's bed. "Like I said, your artwork's getting better. I remember that map you drew..."
Tai snorted. "It was a perfectly good map! I could read it just fine."
"Nobody else could. It looked like a tarantula got squashed on it. At least I can tell what that is." He gestured in the direction of the desk. Tai sighed.
"Aw, man...I was hoping you wouldn't."
"Too bad...you're not the dude of doodles you once were, Tai. I'm afraid your scribbles are no longer...scribbles. Here, let me see."
Tai reluctantly drew the paper out of his desk and handed it to Matt, who turned it over in his hands. It was smudged, and the dimensions were off, but it was unmistakably a sketch of Sora. Looking up at his friend, Matt sighed.
"You really have it bad, don't you, dude? How many days has it been?"
Tai put his face in his hands. "Four. Four days..." He raised his fear-filled eyes to meet Matt's gaze. "What if she's really gone, Matt? What if she's out there somewhere, lost, or hurt, or...or..." His voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard. "And I can't help her! I can't do a thing!"
Matt reached out and patted his shoulder. "It's rough...we're all scared, Tai. But about the helping thing..."
Tai frowned. "What about it?"
"Well...Izzy went over to the Takenouchis' apartment the other day, and he just called me and said he'd discovered something: something important. Wouldn't explain over the phone, but he sounded really excited. He said for me to get you and Kari, then meet the others at the computer lab. TK and Kari already left; he told her the minute we got in the door, and she wouldn't wait."
Tai leapt to his feet. "Let's go!"
"There's my old friend Tai!" Matt said happily. "Right, let's get moving!"
* * * * *
"...so I brought my Digital scanner, just in case, and you won't believe what I found! There's a sensor anomaly of epic proportions, right in the middle of the Takenouchis' computer room! The readings were off the charts!"
"Well, what was it? And in normal English, please," Matt insisted. Izzy blinked.
"Hey, I was getting there, Matt. There seems to be a sort of cross-dimensional post-incident trace-level remnant disturbance in the Takenouchis' apartment!"
"A what?" every human and Digimon in the lab but him exclaimed. He sighed.
"It's as though someone punched a hole in the space-time continuum, right through to another dimension, and it hasn't quite healed over yet. There was still a...a trail, sort of, that I could scan and follow, and so I did." He looked solemnly at the others. "It leads directly to a northern sector of the Digiworld. And judging from the degree of deterioration, it was opened the night Sora disappeared."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Davis exclaimed. "Let's go there and find her!"
"It's not that simple, Davis," Izzy explained. "The disturbance caused by the force required to rip such a hole, as well as the influence of the closing hole itself, has disrupted the fabric of time and space for miles around the entrance and exit sectors. If I try to open a Digiport into the area for all seven of you, anything could happen! You all could be swept away, or sent to the wrong place, or the computer might just up and explode. Furthermore, I would be almost unable to communicate with you once you arrived there, if you even did."
"Is there any way you can get just one person there?" Tai asked, quietly but with a resoluteness behind every word that was startling for a boy his age. Everyone looked up; he had hardly spoken since he'd arrived. Izzy frowned.
"Hmm...I suppose I could rig a reinforced Digiport for just one person, but with all the residual turbulence from the dimensional rip it would be a rough ride. There's an incredible chaos factor in that thing, even days after it was created. Prolonged passage through one of them could probably ki-" Izzy broke off at the look on Tai's face. "Ah...well, then...yes, I think I could get one person there... But there's still the problem of communication. Any emails you sent me would have only a one-in-fifty-seven chance of getting through, at best, and visual contact would be out of the question."
"Then I'll just send whatever message I want to get to you fifty-seven times," Tai said, already reaching for his jacket.
"Uh, Tai, that's not quite how it-"
"How soon can you get this reinforced portal set up?"
"Well..."
Tai strode over to stand in front of Izzy, looking him straight in the eyes. "Look, Izzy, you said that rip thing was dangerous. Well, that means Sora could be lost, or even hurt out there, and with all this disturbance she can't get back. If there's even the smallest chance I can go and get her, I'm not going to stand here and worry about visual whatever-it-is. So get cracking on that portal, okay?"
Izzy looked long and hard at the expression on Tai's face, then nodded. "Right. I'll get on it." He turned to the keyboard, but paused. "What time do you want me to pick you up?"
"What?"
"I already said we won't have much chance at communication, so we'd better set up a preordained time and place for me to open the return portal. You go find Sora, bring her there, and wait. I'll work on doubling the reinforcement to carry two people while you're gone. I'm sure I can figure it out, with Yolei's help. That is, if she doesn't mind." Yolei shook her head. "Great, then we're set. Well?"
Tai thought for a minute. "Give me three days. That should be enough."
"Right, three days, then. I'll drop you at the same place the rip came out, and we'll call that the pickup spot, too."
"Sounds good. Who's going to cover for me?"
Matt shrugged. "We could stage another camping trip."
"It's twenty degrees outside, Matt," TK protested.
"Well, then we could say you're staying at our place. My dad's out of town for a few days, he'll never have to know."
"It's not great, but it should do. I'll run home and ask my mom if I can spend the weekend at your house. I'll try and drop a hint that you're being supportive of the whole Sora thing by letting me spend some time talking about it-she'll sucker for it. Then I'll pack and be down here."
"Got it. And, Tai?"
"Yeah, Izzy?"
The computer whiz looked up from his monitor. "Pack warmly. This place is colder than a supermarket fish freezer, and twice as icy."
Tai swallowed hard at the thought of Sora, stranded in the snow.
"Right..."
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Well? How'm I doing? Please, folks, review! My ego needs inflating! M_~* (What, did you really think we authors ask for reviews so we'll know what to write next?! Heheh...joudan da yo. -Just kidding.-) Oh, yeah, and I don't own Digimon. If I did, Taiora and Takari would have survived Ep. 50, natch. M_~*
