Act One
I can't say that anything is going to be alright,
I'll lie here and look at you on my side
When Hirokazu awoke the next morning the city was in a state of chaos. His front door stood wide open and Kenta was sleeping peacefully next to him on his parents queen sized bed. He was oblivious to all of them. Only two things occupied his mind at that particular moment; how sore his eyes were and how dry his mouth was.
It would have been nice to do something about them, but the grogginess associated with waking prevented his limbs from moving. He could only lay there and stare at the bedside clock, which remained blissfully blank. The power was still out and his parent's weren't home.
Somewhere on the streets below people were yelling, no doubt it had some connection with the lack of power. Beside him Kenta groaned and turned over, pulling the blankets off Hirokazu. He shivered and cursed under his breath. The air outside the blankets was freezing, freezing enough to get him out of bed and take him to the kitchen.
At the bottom of the refrigerator he was greeted with a large puddle of icy water. He tried his best to ignore it as he drank the half cold water from the jug. Despite the lack of cold in the fridge, the water was cold enough to remind him he was standing in a puddle. He wasn't ready to mop it up just yet; he'd wait until Kenta woke up and, hopefully, stood in it.
The clock on the wall told him it was 7:30am, a lot earlier than he usually woke up. He was tempted to wake up Kenta just for the sake of annoying him, but thought better of him. Kenta was kind and mellow by nature, but he certainly wasn't a morning person. If Hirokazu knew anything about him, it was not to wake him up at 7:30am.
Instead he plopped himself down on the couch and rediscovered the fact that when the power was out the TV didn't work. Out of boredom he surveyed the apartment, making sure nothing out of the ordinary had happened since the power was out. It was then he noticed the front door.
Involuntarily his heartbeat sped up in his chest. He was sure he had at least closed it last night; he wasn't so sure about locking it. Biting down his fear he stood up and walked over to close it. The hallway of the apartment complex was as indiscreet as it had ever been. All the doors shut, the off while coloured wallpaper peeling slightly at the corners and the ugly, brown stain near room 3B that reminded Hirokazu eerily of blood.
Gingerly he closed the door and hastily surveyed the apartment once again. There was no sign of an intruder, nothing was missing; at least, nothing big. Breathing deeply he returned to his parents room where Kenta sill lay, snoring slightly and tangled in a mess of blankets. Without thought to the consequences Hirokazu knelt down on the carpet next to Kenta and began shaking him.
"Kenta?" He whispered, hoping not to startle the boy out of sleep, "Kenta wake up."
Kenta only groaned and turned over in response. However, Hirokazu's spirit wouldn't be dampened that easily. He vaulted himself over Kenta so he sat on the other side of the bed and continued shaking his shoulders.
"Come on," He said, louder than necessary, "you can't sleep forever."
That seemed to catch Kenta's attention, he groaned and his eyes slid open slightly. As soon as they were open, however, he shut them tightly and pulled the covers over his head.
"Oh come on, I know you're awake under there Kenta, get up." Hirokazu accented his argument by punching the lump that was Kenta.
After a few moments Kenta threw the covers off himself and glared up at Hirokazu
"I hate you." He mumbled, his voice cracked and dry
"Whatever, Kenta, do you remember me closing the door last night?"
For a moment Kenta stared at him as if he had never seen him before. Slowly, his eyes focused behind his glasses (which he had been wearing all night) and he blinked owlishly before answering
"How should I know?"
"Come one Kenta, try to remember." Hirokazu pleaded
"What does it matter?" Kenta sat up, his eyes became serious
"Because when I woke up this morning it was wide open and I don't remember leaving it open last night."
"Was anything taken?"
"Not that I could see but…" Hirokazu trailed off seeing the cynicism in Kenta's eyes
"If nothing's missing then what are you worrying about? You probably just left it open anyway. We both know how absent minded you can be."
Kenta's confidence didn't help calm Hirokazu's nerves one bit, but he decided to drop the subject seeing as Kenta had already begun to make himself comfortable under the blankets once again.
"My parents still aren't home you know," Hirokazu started thoughtfully, pulling some of the blanket over his knees, "They said they would be home last night."
Kenta didn't answer, but he wasn't asleep. He stared up at the ceiling blankly.
"You better get up soon," Hirokazu added, "We have to be at the Hypnose building soon."
Again Kenta didn't answer, only nodded and asked
"Why do you reckon the power's been out so long?" He removed his gaze from the ceiling to meet Hirokazu's. His eyes held no emotion, which reflected on the pale skin of his face. He looked so small beneath the mess of blankets, too small. Hirokazu couldn't suppress the feeling of foreboding that swelled up in his chest. He was worried, but not for himself, for Kenta. Something big was going to happen, something unstoppable. There was no doubt in his mind the loss of power had something to do with it.
"I don't know." He replied with a shrug.
He removed his eyes from Kenta's; he couldn't bear looking at them anymore. He had hoped that if he broke eye contact the feeling would die down, how mistaken he was. Instead, it increased. He could feel Kenta's eyes bore into his back, stinging his spine.
"You should get up now; we have to be there pretty early." He muttered hastily climbing out of the bed and, without making eye contact, left.
The trip to the Hypnose building passed uneventfully and quietly. The gnawing feeling in Hirokazu's gut only became worse as they continued and flared almost to the point of pain when he made eye contact with Kenta. By the time they reached the building he was almost positive the reason they were called here wasn't simply to collect data. At a time of crisis like this the Hypnose workers would probably be more suited to finding out what exactly was causing the blackout.
"The process we use the breach the barrier separating the two worlds is a relatively simple one. Along the barrier are certain weak points, points of influence; from these points hackers can easily break holes, eventually forming one hole large enough for a probe to be sent through. With this probe we have located certain points in the digital world where data is clustered, like cities; this is where we believe your digimon partners to be. We cannot be one hundred percent sure of the behaviour of digimon, but these seem the most likely places to start."
As soon as everyone had arrived at the Hypnose building (excluding Ruki) Yamaki had instantly launched into a full explanation of the process involved in finding their partners,
"In order to locate one specific digimon, your digimon partners to be precise, we require the aid of your digivices. We will hook them up to a computer and use the personal tracking device installed in them to pinpoint the exact coordinates you're digimon are at. From this stage we will send a retrieval vessel not unlike the ark, to fetch them."
"Well that's all well and good but the question is what are you going to do with our digimon once you have them?" Hirokazu asked testily.
The feeling of apprehension that had earlier plagued him was now nothing more than a mere prickling at the back of his mind, but he still wasn't quite ready to start trusting them. No matter how innocent it all sounded he knew there were ulterior motives to Yamaki's plan.
"It's quite simple," Yamaki started, staring at Hirokazu. Hirokazu met his gaze and folded his arms across his chest, "We will test each of them separately, and note the testing will not harm them in any way. Once we have collected the necessary data you may do with them what you wish."
The room fell silent. It was all too simple, that was all Hirokazu could think in response to Yamaki's proposition. The whole thing sounded so unrealistic. Why, if they only wanted to collect data, had they called them out to the park at 9:30pm last night to discuss it? Surely it couldn't be that important. And why, at a time like this when the power was out and the city was in chaos, were they collecting data?
"What are you using this data for?" Ryo asked the question Hirokazu had been thinking
"It is for a recent experiment we have been conducting on the differences between digimon and human DNA."
Again silence fell, Hirokazu met Kenta's eyes and Kenta nodded silently. He was going to agree and no doubt there was nothing he could do to stop him. He flicked his eyes over to Takato, who met them and nodded. They were all willing; they were all ready to trust him when it was so blatantly obvious there was more to his story than just that. Or maybe he was just being paranoid.
Before he had a chance to voice his mistrust Takato answered for them.
"Okay, you have our cooperation, what do we have to do?"
Hirokazu wanted to shout, wanted to stop them all from walking into this with their eyes closed. And he would have, if it weren't for that one miniscule possibility that plagued him. Maybe he was just being paranoid
"A wise choice, follow me." Yamaki led them out of the stark white room they had been situated in, into a brightly lit corridor. From his vantage point next to a wall of windows that looked out over the pandemonium that was now their city, Hirokazu could tell they were at least ten floors up. Still, Yamaki led them straight towards the elevator. Once inside he swiped a key card and punched a code into a key pad near the buttons next to the elevator door. Once finished he pushed the highest numbered button possible, 57.
The ride up was both silent and unpleasant. The plain metal walls of the elevator didn't do much to lighten the mood, only created an atmosphere of entrapment. Hirokazu had never been claustrophobic but he was beginning to feel what it was like to be so. When they reached the top floor he could tell he wasn't the only one glad to be out of the elevator.
Without addressing them Yamaki continued onwards down the only passage open to them. A wide, brightly lit corridor, not unlike the one on the other floors, that led straight to a room filled with monitors.
Every monitor, except for one in the top corner, combined to make one huge map on which different coloured dots flashed and moved. On two levitated chairs the woman who had accompanied Yamaki last night sat and typed on small keyboards. Around the room were various panels with buttons and strange machines, people moved and talked casually adding an eerily ordinary atmosphere to the room.
If anything, however, the room looked like a lab, too much like a lab for Hirokazu likes. Maybe he really was paranoid; maybe Yamaki really was telling them the truth. Or maybe this was just a big act.
Amidst his confusion he heard Yamaki talking, but only one sentence registered in his mind:
"This could very well determine the fate of humankind."
**
AN: for Nataku, my one and only reviewer: yes there will be more relationships in this story, a whole lot more relationships ^_^