PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES
"Digimon" and all characters and situations contained within are
copyrighted trademarks of Bandai, Saban Entertainment and Upper Deck.
Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document
unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at
Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do
know my way around Title 17.
****
Rebel Yell
****
She knew herself well.
She was seventeen, tall but not too tall, thin but not fragile, female but not overly endowed. She was a creature of toned muscles and taut skin rather than pale and fragile. She was not a quiet person; rather, she would speak her mind and be done with it. She didn't open up deeply much anymore except to one particular old friend and confidant, however. Like most teenage girls she was a master of talking a lot while saying nothing. She possessed smooth lavender hair, tied back in a bun while on a job; she'd rather have it down, but it could get her killed in the field. She had quiet brown eyes the color and consistency of honey. A few prospective guys had told her that it was her best feature, something she found herself still being flattered at. She was Miyako Inuoe.
She knew her enemy well.
The Odaiba Group was a Japanese-run corporation which's leadership operated out of a formerly small suburban area appropriately named Odaiba. The group had three direct expansions, forty-one divisions, and over ten billion American dollars in revenue per month. It produced everything from toasters to cars to toilet paper to reactor cores, and owned land in one hundred eleven different countries. It was run by a loose conglomeration of boards and vice presidents and had an impressive legal tangle leading to its real leader, a man who simply went by The President, or Mr. President to dignitaries who happened to enter his room. He was encased in an unusual building constructed in the center of the suburb; a fairly large, perfectly round tower that took over one hundred billion yen to construct, most of it on fragile research technology. Miyako knew little about the machines but she knew that it was the devices of the Odaiba Group, their exotic new energy sources, that were poisoning her world.
"Miyako?" a quiet voice asked beside her. Right; she was doing something about it, though. She was stopping the advance of the mysterious Mr. President. Right? Right. That's why she was on this boat, a few hours out from the island chain of Southern Japan, going to destroy one of their reactor production facilities.
She turned to look at the adolescent boy next to her. Still shorter than her, with his hair in the usual perfect cut, he had however stretched out so that he looked a bit older while keeping the almost angelic appearance that he always had possessed. Calm. Composed, to the point of being completely unflappable. Some people claimed that he didn't care much about anything. They made a decent team; she cared enough for the both of them. He seemed to be confused at her current behavior, which made perfect sense; it was a chilly if not cold day in hell before she found herself brooding.
That meant that on cold days she was free to brood, and it wasn't getting any warmer out there.
"Don't worry about me, Iori," she said quietly. "I'll be ready when we get there." The boat they were on was crewed with almost ten others; the boat itself, the Lady Celesta, was a loan from a family friend of Miyako's. It was an old tub, but it ran, and it ran well enough to get the crew to the factory in about a day from her base, an old TV transmitting station on a harbor located less than an hour from the round headquarters of the Odaiba Group. Currently, she was at the bow of the boat, keeping watch. The others would be below deck relaxing or running the ship.
She couldn't see much, though. Not only was there quite a bit of fog, there was also the matter of it being almost eight at night. These days, that meant that it was dark outside. Glancing up, she took in Iori again. "Hey there, Iori," she said, noting the mildly glum face of her comrade. Iori may have been a solid person to back her up and a ground to reality but that meant that she could read him like a book, which was much to his irritation. "You need to chill a bit, okay? I'll be fine."
"It's not you I'm worried about," he replied darkly and turned away. She frowned slightly; this was not typical Iori behavior.
"What's up, Iori?" she asked quietly, no darkness in her voice. "You're not really worried, are you?"
"It's not you I'm worried about," he repeated, and motioned towards the far end of the boat. Following his gaze she saw the object of his troubling and nodded in agreement. Resting on the side of the boat, her long burnette hair pulled back into something tucked under her hat, eyes away from them, was a rather new member of their group; Hikari Kamiya had decided that she had wanted in on the action. She had been a general errand girl and help-at-the-base kind of person but she had changed her mind; why, Miyako couldn't imagine. Miyako had privately decided to keep her off of the field and had put Hikari through the wringer to discourage her but Hikari, showing a hidden reserve of perseverance, had somehow managed to pass the rigorous physical and mental conditioning tests that Miyako ran on her. It was, in a perverse way, just as well; the sixth member of Miyako's personal squad had taken sick lately and was down for a month or so.
"Ah," she said. "I tested her for everything imaginable. She's faster if not stronger than pretty much everyone else, and she turned out to be good at improvising. She's probably more set than I am for this, but yeah, I still don't like this."
Iori Hida had a different idea. "It's not that -- what if we run into one of the Odaiba workers? She'd probably rather have us talk them out of working there, rather than stunning him and booking it." His piece said, he turned stormy eyes out towards the sea.
Miyako had reservations of the same sort, despite her best judgement, but for a different reason. Hikari had been muttering lately about how useless she felt, and suddenly joining the that felt like desperation to prove something from Miyako's point of view. That kind of thirst was all well and good while they were safe, but out in the field it'd be nothing but trouble. She got up -- an accomplishment in itself, since it was still quite cold out -- and walked on over to where Hikari was sitting down. Iori remained where he was, not looking at Miyako as she got up.
Hikari noted her presence as she drew near with a glance up and, "Hello, Miyako. What's up?" Miyako sat down next to her and glanced at her; she merely looked back at Miyako, relaxed and open. Inwardly, Miyako chuckled; Hikari was one of the few constants in her life. Hikari was the rare person that was completely open with herself and others; her openness shined as a light in the darkness of the day and age. She claimed when questioned by others about it that it was simply the way that she was. Perhaps, a dark thought whispered to Miyako, that was why she recovered the fastest from their former attempts to right the wrong, six years ago. This time, she vowed silently, we will not fail.
"Miyako?" Hikari questioned, looking and sounding concerned, breaking up Miyako's thought line. "What's up? I'm only a little nervous, if that's what you want."
Miyako shook herself silently. "Nothing really... I just wanted to, you know, sound you out and all. This is your first field work, you know, and we all know how hard it can be -- there's always surprises and nobody really knows what's going on most of the time." Hikari listened without moving. "So I wanted to know if there's any kind of question or worry you have so that I can iron it out, yeah?"
"Will there be anyone else at wherever we're going?" Hikari asked.
"I don't know," Miyako answered without looking at the other girl's eyes. "We never visit a place that's running or staffed, but there have been people there. Iori and Yomca are pretty good at getting them out of there." Miyako chose not to add that those 'helped' were usually carried out unconscious.
"Okay. What do we do once the job's done?"
"We get back in the boat and go home, then figure out what went wrong and fix it."
"Huh?" Hikari looked confused.
The left side of Miyako's face twitched. "There isn't such a thing as a perfect job, Hikari. We always find something wrong to do while we're out there, from the boat's engine stalling out to the wrong blend in the package. When we get back, we have everyone talk about what happened and get it all fixed, just so we can find something else to go wrong. Our resident planner Sam likes to say that eventually we'll have run out of things that can go wrong and we'll knock out the entire company!" The last part was delivered with gusto, one finger raised into the fog.
Hikari giggled a bit. "I can see why everyone else follows you."
"Right. Now, anything else? We'll be there in about an hour, so now's the time."
She looked around an bit and, seeing no one else in hearing range, asked urgently, "How do you deal with the butterflies in the stomach and the wondering?"
Miyako grinned a bit. "I thought you weren't nervous."
"Shut up," Hikari shot back, but without any force. To Miyako's practiced eye Hikari did indeed look nervous; enough perhaps to interfere with her concentration. That didn't sit too well with her, but she decided to trust Hikari.
"You go out there and do it. Once you've done it once, you'll always be able to do it again. Just keep your mind on what you're doing and you'll be fine."
Hikari said, "Oh." She looked down at the stuff she was carrying in a pack; a heartbeat detector and infrared / ultraviolet vision goggles. As the sixth member of the team she was expected to act as the eyes of the team, to make sure that nothing went wrong and that nobody unexpected appeared, at least not without the team knowing that they were coming. It was the only job that wasn't directly connected to the package or keeping the team alive in case of confrontation, and it was the only job that Miyako would let her do, for now.
Iori interrupted their attempt at conversation with a wild shout, one that had been building over the last twelve hours of sea travel. "Land! We're approaching the landing point!" Obligingly, the fog parted and showed those on board a view of the far coast. The crew and passengers of the Lady Celesta sprung into action, readying themselves for landing.
Miyako leaped to her feet, steadying what she was carrying in her pack, and motioned to Hikari. "Come on! We need to get with the others: there's lots to do before we can get off!" Having said that, she proceeded to yank Hikari up and half-drag her towards the hold, a huge noisy place that housed both their other stuff and was next to the engine compartment.
Miyako wasn't kidding. The whole crew would get down to the hold, where the actual uniforms would be put on: complex things with equipment to neutralize radar and enhanced sensors. They were also equipped with smoke grenades and two-way radios. Nobody liked the security risk that they posed, but they also didn't have a lot of money to spare being equipped with more fancy stuff. In addition, each person had to prep the stuff that they were carrying with power sources. They had people keep ahold of the more delicate pieces of their equipment -- in case the ship rocked -- but it was all inactive. Miyako was carrying the package itself, and she slid the charge into the canister and clipped on a power unit -- a device that was, unfortunately, manufactured only by the Odaiba Group. Iori and Yomca, a black-haired loner, were checking their stun batons. These were essentially enhanced tasers; they couldn't kill a target, merely stun it, but they had much better range than a traditional handheld taser. Hikari and Kevin, an American exchange student at first but now a permanent resident, had the detection equipment. That left Aya, a bitter schoolgirl out for revenge on the Odaiba Group, to handle the more complex tranceiving station. She was in charge of communications and telling them when to pull out. Her word was law; if she said move, they moved.
After a few moments Miyako gathered up everyone into the far corner of the hold. She had to shout to be heard over the engine. "Okay guys, we're almost there. Anyone have any questions?"
Kevin raised his hand, bellowing, "Can we go swimming first?" That got everyone chuckling and took the edge off of the nervous energy in the room.
"No, we can't go swimming," Miyako shouted back. "Anyone else?"
The room was silent. Miyako had rather thoroughly briefed everyone back at their improvised base and they had gotten all of their questions answered there anyway, but she did it to take the edge off. That was pretty much the only reason that Kevin was on the team -- otherwise she'd be looking for a new member. He wasn't the most focused person. She glanced over at the black-haired Yomca and kept her gaze moving; despite his competence he had a tendency to take his frustration out on whatever was convenient and he stayed away from people quite a bit because of that. She saw the red-haired Aya and locked eyes briefly. Aya had been one of the people carrying a stun baton before she almost went too far with it, giving an Odaiba employee a permenent twitch and a matching scar on the guy's left leg. Miyako hated the Odaiba Group almost as much as Aya, but she refused to give into that kind of impulse. She and Aya had had a long and barely civilized argument about her role reduction some time ago, and Miyako had driven her point home. Aya didn't meet her eyes.
It was her crew, flawed as it was, and she was proud of it. "Bingo!" she yelled out. "Let's go!"
****
The screen was split wth power and glory, and when the rent in reality reached its apex, it spat out the fluid, muscular figure of Ken Ichijouji. Upon entering the Real World, he did what those who had come before him had always done:
He slammed head-first into the floor.
"Ow!" he muttered involuntarily, rubbing his scalp. "Thought I fixed that."
Having said that he took stock of himself. His clothing had changed somewhat; he now had a more obvious division between the top and bottom of his usual outfit rather than it looking like a one-piece jumpsuit, and as he expected his gauntlets were gone. He quickly felt in the back pocket of his pants and, with a grunt of satisfaction, pulled out the disc from his gauntlets. He then grabbed for his Digivice and pulled it out; it showed the expected static rather than a Gate opening when he held it to the screen.
He had a vague recollection of rushing water, of swirling lights and of a steady pull forwards as he went through the gate. He also felt the vibrating, grinding feeling that the Seals produced, their disrupting feeling threatening to consume everything even with the devices on 20% power. He shook himself slightly and stood all the way up, almost hitting his head on the low ceiling of the place he was at. Then he realized something, something that was enough to have him forget himself, stand all the way up, and come crashing down again:
He made it! He was in the Real World now! It was enough for him to glaze out and remember some things, like the cars in the city and the lights at night, and bubbles blowing out of an apartment building. Things like walking on the street carefree; things like being open and honest all the time. Things that, as the Regent, he couldn't do very much.
Gathering his wits eventually, he took out his digivice to check the time... only to find that it still displayed static. The things you take for granted, he thought to himself, and then remember the little black object in the back of his neck. The Dark Spore at its core was nothing more than a collector of energy, and when he was in the Digital World it was all well and good because of the balance of free-floating energy; but here in the Real World it would have to have to draw on him for power. That meant that when its reserves were dry it would automatically set itself to stimulate the production of negative energy.
He had been in the grasp of the Spore that way before, and it was not an experience to be repeated.
He reached into it with his mind, probing the device. Its creator had fashioned it from an actual Digimon and as such it had intelligence and will; it could recognise him and he had befriended the little guy after a long while. It woke up -- most of the time it was asleep -- and reacted. 'Yes, Regent?'
'I need for you to stop your passive work, Spore. I can't feed you well here,' he sent back. The Spore consumed a bit of power to live, but if it wasn't doing passive work -- searching for other sources of food, looking for any threats to its host, offering some energy for enhanced focusing -- it could live for months on what it had stored away.
'Oh,' it sent back. 'I'm gonna be really bored for a while, aren't I?'
'Sorry, little guy,' Ken mentally said. 'I don't have much choice.'
It didn't respond, but Ken felt it go quiet. At the same time, he realized that he was having trouble merely standing; it seemed to be harder somehow. He sat down abruptly and glanced around confused, suddenly scatterbrained. Even his vision was fuzzy. It was about then that he realized just how much he had relied on the Spore. No wonder the thing liked him: he kept it busy and must have stuffed it good. He took a moment to gather his wits, then immediately gave a hard look at his surroundings.
He saw that he was in a basement somewhere, one that was undergoing serious renovation; it had torn-down walls branching off of the central area, where he was. Unsurprisingly, it was quite cool down there. It had a bed, and couch, and various domestic things: it also, in one corner, had the computer that he came flying out of. A small window shone no light; Ken guessed that it must have been almost two AM where he was, due to how dark it was. There wasn't even a moon out. Ken saw nobody home and decided to take a chance: he went to the computer.
It was a Microsoft-run computer and wasn't anything special. He spent some time just using a mouse and keyboard, getting used to them again. He saw games and word processing programs and even some evidence that the computer's owner was male -- he carefully skipped around that, even though it took much more focus than he had expected to get around even the filenames. He didn't dare actully look. The computer was entirely what he expected except for an unusual application that he had never seen before. Its icon was a cartoonish resemblence of the Batman symbol and the title under it read "VandeNet". He chuckled a bit at that -- the Batman show was possibly the only dumb comedy he really enjoyed while living in the Real World before -- and double-clicked on it. It loaded and acted like the Internet browsers that he remembered, but something was different. It was wrong, somehow.
He felt wrong. That was the only way he knew to describe it.
What kind of wrong? he asked himself. Analysis of himself usually came right to him, but today it seemed to be dragging. Almost as if he couldn't think well. Then he remembered: the Spore was off. That was taking some getting used to. This kind of wrong was coming from deep down. It was touching off a memory --
-- of running towards the battle, Digivice flaring --
-- of denying that it could happen: impossible, I can't be outwit by a simpering Chosen! --
-- of throwing away his rules and betting it all --
-- the resulting surge of power, far off but coming closer --
-- it felt like this.
He recognised it for what it was; dark power. Ken wasn't sure where it came from but it had arrived right when the "VandeNet" thing had begun running. Disgusted, Ken turned it off with a swat on the mouse button. He ended up almost smashing the mouse entirely: he heard something crack when he hit the thing. He stared down at his hands fearfully. He hadn't meant to do that. It had just happened.
On impulse, he awakened the Dark Spore. 'Hey.'
It came fully awake right away -- one of its better qualities. 'Regent? Oh! Food!' With that, it proceeded to gorge itself on what it was that it ate -- excess dark energy. Almost immediately Ken felt better and whole again. 'I thought we weren't in the Digital World anymore,' the critter said. Ken caught on to that very quickly.
'We're not,' Ken sent back grimly. 'The Real World seems to have a source of darkness, too'
The little guy guy didn't seem to have the words to describe his joy, only digging into the excess dark energy that Ken was holding onto. When he had had the Spore looked at, they realized that it was developed to eat the excess darkness first, and that it made allowances for anyone to have some of their own. If it was running low on fuel, however, all of its restrictions were taken off and it would simply go for whatever it could eat. For his part, Ken shrugged mentally and stood up.
It was about then that he heard the voices. Two of them, definitely male, and definitely coming towards where he was. Rather than stay and try to explain his presence, Ken stood up abruptly and glanced around wildly, looking for a way out. He found one away and back out a door, while the voices were above him. Ken ran to the door, threw it open, and ran outside into the night and closed the door behind him. He then made tracks away from the house.
He got about thirty feet before he looked around himself, finding himself in a residential neighborhood of some sort. It was pitch black outside and not too warm; he also noticed that the street lamps weren't doing much to make things easier. They were either dim or completely out. The houses weren't lit too well either and he didn't see any power lines running to houses. In effect, it looked nothing like what he expected; it was a large group of isolated, dark houses.
He started trudging towards a large, bright conglomeration of lights some distance away. While he walked, he thought things over. He didn't have any assistance save for the disc that contained bank codes, he didn't know where he was, and he didn't have any idea what to do next. That wasn't a problem for him, though; he'd been in worse predicaments. The Internet was his goal here, but it seemed that it was being abused by some kind of dark power. For what purpose, Ken could only guess; but the fact that somebody was taking over the Internet or changing what it was set his blood boiling. He moved a mite faster towards the lights, anticipating some kind of information, but not hoping too hard: it was, after all, far too dark to be anything but the late, late hours of the night.
He arrived at the area some fifteen minutes later, only to discover that this particular store was marked "OPEN 24 HOURS" and that there was quite a group of people inside, judging by the lot full of cars. Thrusting his hands inside his pockets, he walked inside the store. The store was actually a vast business big enough to have a hair cuttery, an ATM, and even its own pizza place. It was certainly brightly lit for being so late at night; the area was full of people going about their business. They looked tired, but it was past midnight, so that was to be expected. He moved inside the store, looking around, feeling intimidated by how many people there were, but keeping his movement steady. He kept moving --
Abruptly, the Spore woke up. 'Regent, something's draining my energy away!'
This took Ken quite by surprise. 'What?!' He struggled briefly not to verbalize what he was trying to say to the Spore. 'How?'
'I don't know!' it wailed back. 'Something here is doing it! It's getting you, too -- can't you feel it?'
Ken shook his head, already on his way out the door. 'No. Tell me when it stops.'
They had reached the end of the registers and were ten steps from the door when the Spore responded. 'Much better,' it chirped. 'Good thing I ate so much earlier, huh?'
Ken nodded with a grim smirk on his face. 'Good thing.' He glanced around a bit, to take another look at the other humans. They looked tired, all right. Much too tired to be shopping. A theory began to bounce its way into his head and he only needed... there! An employee walked over to him; an older lady.
"Can I help you, son?" she asked in English. Her voice was also tired, but it had an emptiness that a more traditional tired lacked. Well, Ken thought distractedly, that's one mystery solved. He figured by the accent that he was somewhere in the northeastern United States.
"I only need the time, ma'am," he said politely and also in English. The woman glanced down at her watch.
"It's a few moments past seven, son," she said.
That hit him like a ton of bricks; stumbling, he found himself backpedaling slightly. "Are you alright?" she asked, less tired this time. "You're mighty pale, son."
He shook himself, tried to rally. "I'm okay, ma'am. I just thought it was later at night."
She looked at him. "Speak English, son." His eyebrows twitched; he hadn't even realized that he had switched to Japanese. Without another word he walked over to the pizza place and sat down hard in a booth. His thoughts were frozen, his reactions numb; all he could make out was --
What is going on here?!
****
"What do you mean, they got by the defenses?"
An unfortunate soldier / employee of the Odaiba Group was standing before the President and all three of his famous Assistants; this particular soldier had been chosen by his commander to deliver the news to the President. This task was not usually a difficult thing; but when the Assistants joined the President a debriefing usually turned into more of an interrogation. He cringed ever so slightly at the Assistant's question and answered in a shaky tone, "The resistance managed to make it through the defensive perimeter and strike into Factory #2, destroying it and its stockpile of ED reactors. They then withdrew from the area, masking their presence with the morning fog, sir."
The President remained motionless. The Assistant to the left of the President, a tall, lanky man, cocked his head to the right. "What of the plant workers?"
"They were already home for the night, sir. The night watchmen were found some distance away, stunned by stun rods or tasers."
The Assistant to the President's right spoke up; she was a haughty woman with an angry tone and a carefully modulated amount of scorn in her voice. "What happened that they were able to move by the defenses?"
"We're still working on that, sir, er, ma'am."
The President motioned to his assistants. "That will be enough, Private. The watchmen are at fault. You were and are merely doing your job. Dismissed." He waved off the soldier, who saluted and strode swiftly out of the room.
The final Assistant waited until the soldier had left before turning to the President and snorting. "So much for your game tonight. Do you doubt my analysis now?"
The female Assistant bit out, "Watch your tone!", but was waved down by the President. The President chuckled a bit, leaning back in his oversize chair.
"No, I don't suppose I do. It is quite clear that the watchmen system that we have set up now is quite inadequate. They are to be moved to a more profitable location while we conduct an extensive security sweep of the area." He motioned to the woman. "You are to take care of that." She nodded and, turning, stormed out of the area.
"She'll be furious for some time for that," the male Assistant noted. "She despises being proven wrong."
The President shook his head. "I think I have something that can make up for that." He glanced over at the third Assistant, still in the shadow. "Give me what you have on the digital situation." She came out from darkness and jumped on the table, looking the President in the eye.
"This is what we have," she began. "The Gate definitely sent a single person through, but that person didn't remain at the gate. I can safely say that the Emperor didn't send through a Digimon because we would have found it; therefore, I believe that it is some kind of automaton or robot, sent through to collect data for an as yet unknown reason. The Seals, interestingly enough, have lowered in power to about 35% of their normal level. If we want to punch through to the Digital World now is the time."
"Indeed," the President replied thoughtfully. "Get Lab 32 on this right away -- while I sincerely doubt that they can make it through the Seals even at that reduced powerlevel, they have produced the occasional miracle. Tell them to be extremely careful; the Seals will kill them if they attempt to break through prematurely." The Assistant saluted, jumped off the table, and ran off around the room to the elevator on the other side.
The final Assistant stood at silent attention, awaiting orders. The President didn't make a sound as the elevator descended. Silence fell on the two for a moment.
The elevator ascended and its new passenger walked out calmly into the main area. "You called?"
"You told me," the President began, steepling his fingers,"that the Resistance was too busy to attack a complex directly."
"I did," the person said.
"Why, therefore, is it that the complex where my employees were finished making the next generation of reactors has been reduced to ashes?"
"I couldn't discourage our leader," the person responded. "She holds you and yours responsible for the changes in our world."
The President straightened, looking the person right in the eye. "I suggest that you find a better way to assist me if you desire the end of this. My patience with the resistence grows thin; I want to see them out of action before I will cut back on reactor producion and energy broadcasting."
"I can't do everything, but this time I'll break the boat before I'll let them go off again. We've already lost too many people to this conflict; we can't lose more. I can't break her spirit directly so I'll simply slow it down as best as I can." The person seemed self-satisfied.
The President motioned towards the door. "I trust you, but I need to see results in exchange for that trust." Getting the message, the person turned and walked back to the elevator. The President turned to the slightly bewildered assistant and said, "Comments?"
"It's about the last thing that I expected, sir," the person replied truthfully. "I don't doubt your ability, but I had envisioned the resistance as being more tightly knit than that person has made it out to be."
The President sighed. "That person," he said, "is rather fully within our power."
"Like Squad A, sir?"
"Precisely."
"Orders?"
"Follow him to the base, and take Squad A and whatever backup you believe you require with you. Gut them like fish and bring any Chosen to me alive. Ideally, you'll get two of them. It remains to be seen whether the rest of them are there, but if they are we can go ahead with implementation that much faster."
The Assistant saluted. "Yes, sir!" he all but shouted, and left the room in a flourish.
All alone now, the President leaned back in the chair and pressed a button, and a projector activated itself. It showed for him the eight Crests of the Chosen and the progress he had made on each one. He examined each one in turn, then rotated the display away from himself, thinking all the while. He deactivated the projector and got up, walking over to the window. From here he could see the person he had talked to earlier walk right out the front door of his Tower.
The President shook his head. Such a waste...
****
Rebel Yell
****
She knew herself well.
She was seventeen, tall but not too tall, thin but not fragile, female but not overly endowed. She was a creature of toned muscles and taut skin rather than pale and fragile. She was not a quiet person; rather, she would speak her mind and be done with it. She didn't open up deeply much anymore except to one particular old friend and confidant, however. Like most teenage girls she was a master of talking a lot while saying nothing. She possessed smooth lavender hair, tied back in a bun while on a job; she'd rather have it down, but it could get her killed in the field. She had quiet brown eyes the color and consistency of honey. A few prospective guys had told her that it was her best feature, something she found herself still being flattered at. She was Miyako Inuoe.
She knew her enemy well.
The Odaiba Group was a Japanese-run corporation which's leadership operated out of a formerly small suburban area appropriately named Odaiba. The group had three direct expansions, forty-one divisions, and over ten billion American dollars in revenue per month. It produced everything from toasters to cars to toilet paper to reactor cores, and owned land in one hundred eleven different countries. It was run by a loose conglomeration of boards and vice presidents and had an impressive legal tangle leading to its real leader, a man who simply went by The President, or Mr. President to dignitaries who happened to enter his room. He was encased in an unusual building constructed in the center of the suburb; a fairly large, perfectly round tower that took over one hundred billion yen to construct, most of it on fragile research technology. Miyako knew little about the machines but she knew that it was the devices of the Odaiba Group, their exotic new energy sources, that were poisoning her world.
"Miyako?" a quiet voice asked beside her. Right; she was doing something about it, though. She was stopping the advance of the mysterious Mr. President. Right? Right. That's why she was on this boat, a few hours out from the island chain of Southern Japan, going to destroy one of their reactor production facilities.
She turned to look at the adolescent boy next to her. Still shorter than her, with his hair in the usual perfect cut, he had however stretched out so that he looked a bit older while keeping the almost angelic appearance that he always had possessed. Calm. Composed, to the point of being completely unflappable. Some people claimed that he didn't care much about anything. They made a decent team; she cared enough for the both of them. He seemed to be confused at her current behavior, which made perfect sense; it was a chilly if not cold day in hell before she found herself brooding.
That meant that on cold days she was free to brood, and it wasn't getting any warmer out there.
"Don't worry about me, Iori," she said quietly. "I'll be ready when we get there." The boat they were on was crewed with almost ten others; the boat itself, the Lady Celesta, was a loan from a family friend of Miyako's. It was an old tub, but it ran, and it ran well enough to get the crew to the factory in about a day from her base, an old TV transmitting station on a harbor located less than an hour from the round headquarters of the Odaiba Group. Currently, she was at the bow of the boat, keeping watch. The others would be below deck relaxing or running the ship.
She couldn't see much, though. Not only was there quite a bit of fog, there was also the matter of it being almost eight at night. These days, that meant that it was dark outside. Glancing up, she took in Iori again. "Hey there, Iori," she said, noting the mildly glum face of her comrade. Iori may have been a solid person to back her up and a ground to reality but that meant that she could read him like a book, which was much to his irritation. "You need to chill a bit, okay? I'll be fine."
"It's not you I'm worried about," he replied darkly and turned away. She frowned slightly; this was not typical Iori behavior.
"What's up, Iori?" she asked quietly, no darkness in her voice. "You're not really worried, are you?"
"It's not you I'm worried about," he repeated, and motioned towards the far end of the boat. Following his gaze she saw the object of his troubling and nodded in agreement. Resting on the side of the boat, her long burnette hair pulled back into something tucked under her hat, eyes away from them, was a rather new member of their group; Hikari Kamiya had decided that she had wanted in on the action. She had been a general errand girl and help-at-the-base kind of person but she had changed her mind; why, Miyako couldn't imagine. Miyako had privately decided to keep her off of the field and had put Hikari through the wringer to discourage her but Hikari, showing a hidden reserve of perseverance, had somehow managed to pass the rigorous physical and mental conditioning tests that Miyako ran on her. It was, in a perverse way, just as well; the sixth member of Miyako's personal squad had taken sick lately and was down for a month or so.
"Ah," she said. "I tested her for everything imaginable. She's faster if not stronger than pretty much everyone else, and she turned out to be good at improvising. She's probably more set than I am for this, but yeah, I still don't like this."
Iori Hida had a different idea. "It's not that -- what if we run into one of the Odaiba workers? She'd probably rather have us talk them out of working there, rather than stunning him and booking it." His piece said, he turned stormy eyes out towards the sea.
Miyako had reservations of the same sort, despite her best judgement, but for a different reason. Hikari had been muttering lately about how useless she felt, and suddenly joining the that felt like desperation to prove something from Miyako's point of view. That kind of thirst was all well and good while they were safe, but out in the field it'd be nothing but trouble. She got up -- an accomplishment in itself, since it was still quite cold out -- and walked on over to where Hikari was sitting down. Iori remained where he was, not looking at Miyako as she got up.
Hikari noted her presence as she drew near with a glance up and, "Hello, Miyako. What's up?" Miyako sat down next to her and glanced at her; she merely looked back at Miyako, relaxed and open. Inwardly, Miyako chuckled; Hikari was one of the few constants in her life. Hikari was the rare person that was completely open with herself and others; her openness shined as a light in the darkness of the day and age. She claimed when questioned by others about it that it was simply the way that she was. Perhaps, a dark thought whispered to Miyako, that was why she recovered the fastest from their former attempts to right the wrong, six years ago. This time, she vowed silently, we will not fail.
"Miyako?" Hikari questioned, looking and sounding concerned, breaking up Miyako's thought line. "What's up? I'm only a little nervous, if that's what you want."
Miyako shook herself silently. "Nothing really... I just wanted to, you know, sound you out and all. This is your first field work, you know, and we all know how hard it can be -- there's always surprises and nobody really knows what's going on most of the time." Hikari listened without moving. "So I wanted to know if there's any kind of question or worry you have so that I can iron it out, yeah?"
"Will there be anyone else at wherever we're going?" Hikari asked.
"I don't know," Miyako answered without looking at the other girl's eyes. "We never visit a place that's running or staffed, but there have been people there. Iori and Yomca are pretty good at getting them out of there." Miyako chose not to add that those 'helped' were usually carried out unconscious.
"Okay. What do we do once the job's done?"
"We get back in the boat and go home, then figure out what went wrong and fix it."
"Huh?" Hikari looked confused.
The left side of Miyako's face twitched. "There isn't such a thing as a perfect job, Hikari. We always find something wrong to do while we're out there, from the boat's engine stalling out to the wrong blend in the package. When we get back, we have everyone talk about what happened and get it all fixed, just so we can find something else to go wrong. Our resident planner Sam likes to say that eventually we'll have run out of things that can go wrong and we'll knock out the entire company!" The last part was delivered with gusto, one finger raised into the fog.
Hikari giggled a bit. "I can see why everyone else follows you."
"Right. Now, anything else? We'll be there in about an hour, so now's the time."
She looked around an bit and, seeing no one else in hearing range, asked urgently, "How do you deal with the butterflies in the stomach and the wondering?"
Miyako grinned a bit. "I thought you weren't nervous."
"Shut up," Hikari shot back, but without any force. To Miyako's practiced eye Hikari did indeed look nervous; enough perhaps to interfere with her concentration. That didn't sit too well with her, but she decided to trust Hikari.
"You go out there and do it. Once you've done it once, you'll always be able to do it again. Just keep your mind on what you're doing and you'll be fine."
Hikari said, "Oh." She looked down at the stuff she was carrying in a pack; a heartbeat detector and infrared / ultraviolet vision goggles. As the sixth member of the team she was expected to act as the eyes of the team, to make sure that nothing went wrong and that nobody unexpected appeared, at least not without the team knowing that they were coming. It was the only job that wasn't directly connected to the package or keeping the team alive in case of confrontation, and it was the only job that Miyako would let her do, for now.
Iori interrupted their attempt at conversation with a wild shout, one that had been building over the last twelve hours of sea travel. "Land! We're approaching the landing point!" Obligingly, the fog parted and showed those on board a view of the far coast. The crew and passengers of the Lady Celesta sprung into action, readying themselves for landing.
Miyako leaped to her feet, steadying what she was carrying in her pack, and motioned to Hikari. "Come on! We need to get with the others: there's lots to do before we can get off!" Having said that, she proceeded to yank Hikari up and half-drag her towards the hold, a huge noisy place that housed both their other stuff and was next to the engine compartment.
Miyako wasn't kidding. The whole crew would get down to the hold, where the actual uniforms would be put on: complex things with equipment to neutralize radar and enhanced sensors. They were also equipped with smoke grenades and two-way radios. Nobody liked the security risk that they posed, but they also didn't have a lot of money to spare being equipped with more fancy stuff. In addition, each person had to prep the stuff that they were carrying with power sources. They had people keep ahold of the more delicate pieces of their equipment -- in case the ship rocked -- but it was all inactive. Miyako was carrying the package itself, and she slid the charge into the canister and clipped on a power unit -- a device that was, unfortunately, manufactured only by the Odaiba Group. Iori and Yomca, a black-haired loner, were checking their stun batons. These were essentially enhanced tasers; they couldn't kill a target, merely stun it, but they had much better range than a traditional handheld taser. Hikari and Kevin, an American exchange student at first but now a permanent resident, had the detection equipment. That left Aya, a bitter schoolgirl out for revenge on the Odaiba Group, to handle the more complex tranceiving station. She was in charge of communications and telling them when to pull out. Her word was law; if she said move, they moved.
After a few moments Miyako gathered up everyone into the far corner of the hold. She had to shout to be heard over the engine. "Okay guys, we're almost there. Anyone have any questions?"
Kevin raised his hand, bellowing, "Can we go swimming first?" That got everyone chuckling and took the edge off of the nervous energy in the room.
"No, we can't go swimming," Miyako shouted back. "Anyone else?"
The room was silent. Miyako had rather thoroughly briefed everyone back at their improvised base and they had gotten all of their questions answered there anyway, but she did it to take the edge off. That was pretty much the only reason that Kevin was on the team -- otherwise she'd be looking for a new member. He wasn't the most focused person. She glanced over at the black-haired Yomca and kept her gaze moving; despite his competence he had a tendency to take his frustration out on whatever was convenient and he stayed away from people quite a bit because of that. She saw the red-haired Aya and locked eyes briefly. Aya had been one of the people carrying a stun baton before she almost went too far with it, giving an Odaiba employee a permenent twitch and a matching scar on the guy's left leg. Miyako hated the Odaiba Group almost as much as Aya, but she refused to give into that kind of impulse. She and Aya had had a long and barely civilized argument about her role reduction some time ago, and Miyako had driven her point home. Aya didn't meet her eyes.
It was her crew, flawed as it was, and she was proud of it. "Bingo!" she yelled out. "Let's go!"
****
The screen was split wth power and glory, and when the rent in reality reached its apex, it spat out the fluid, muscular figure of Ken Ichijouji. Upon entering the Real World, he did what those who had come before him had always done:
He slammed head-first into the floor.
"Ow!" he muttered involuntarily, rubbing his scalp. "Thought I fixed that."
Having said that he took stock of himself. His clothing had changed somewhat; he now had a more obvious division between the top and bottom of his usual outfit rather than it looking like a one-piece jumpsuit, and as he expected his gauntlets were gone. He quickly felt in the back pocket of his pants and, with a grunt of satisfaction, pulled out the disc from his gauntlets. He then grabbed for his Digivice and pulled it out; it showed the expected static rather than a Gate opening when he held it to the screen.
He had a vague recollection of rushing water, of swirling lights and of a steady pull forwards as he went through the gate. He also felt the vibrating, grinding feeling that the Seals produced, their disrupting feeling threatening to consume everything even with the devices on 20% power. He shook himself slightly and stood all the way up, almost hitting his head on the low ceiling of the place he was at. Then he realized something, something that was enough to have him forget himself, stand all the way up, and come crashing down again:
He made it! He was in the Real World now! It was enough for him to glaze out and remember some things, like the cars in the city and the lights at night, and bubbles blowing out of an apartment building. Things like walking on the street carefree; things like being open and honest all the time. Things that, as the Regent, he couldn't do very much.
Gathering his wits eventually, he took out his digivice to check the time... only to find that it still displayed static. The things you take for granted, he thought to himself, and then remember the little black object in the back of his neck. The Dark Spore at its core was nothing more than a collector of energy, and when he was in the Digital World it was all well and good because of the balance of free-floating energy; but here in the Real World it would have to have to draw on him for power. That meant that when its reserves were dry it would automatically set itself to stimulate the production of negative energy.
He had been in the grasp of the Spore that way before, and it was not an experience to be repeated.
He reached into it with his mind, probing the device. Its creator had fashioned it from an actual Digimon and as such it had intelligence and will; it could recognise him and he had befriended the little guy after a long while. It woke up -- most of the time it was asleep -- and reacted. 'Yes, Regent?'
'I need for you to stop your passive work, Spore. I can't feed you well here,' he sent back. The Spore consumed a bit of power to live, but if it wasn't doing passive work -- searching for other sources of food, looking for any threats to its host, offering some energy for enhanced focusing -- it could live for months on what it had stored away.
'Oh,' it sent back. 'I'm gonna be really bored for a while, aren't I?'
'Sorry, little guy,' Ken mentally said. 'I don't have much choice.'
It didn't respond, but Ken felt it go quiet. At the same time, he realized that he was having trouble merely standing; it seemed to be harder somehow. He sat down abruptly and glanced around confused, suddenly scatterbrained. Even his vision was fuzzy. It was about then that he realized just how much he had relied on the Spore. No wonder the thing liked him: he kept it busy and must have stuffed it good. He took a moment to gather his wits, then immediately gave a hard look at his surroundings.
He saw that he was in a basement somewhere, one that was undergoing serious renovation; it had torn-down walls branching off of the central area, where he was. Unsurprisingly, it was quite cool down there. It had a bed, and couch, and various domestic things: it also, in one corner, had the computer that he came flying out of. A small window shone no light; Ken guessed that it must have been almost two AM where he was, due to how dark it was. There wasn't even a moon out. Ken saw nobody home and decided to take a chance: he went to the computer.
It was a Microsoft-run computer and wasn't anything special. He spent some time just using a mouse and keyboard, getting used to them again. He saw games and word processing programs and even some evidence that the computer's owner was male -- he carefully skipped around that, even though it took much more focus than he had expected to get around even the filenames. He didn't dare actully look. The computer was entirely what he expected except for an unusual application that he had never seen before. Its icon was a cartoonish resemblence of the Batman symbol and the title under it read "VandeNet". He chuckled a bit at that -- the Batman show was possibly the only dumb comedy he really enjoyed while living in the Real World before -- and double-clicked on it. It loaded and acted like the Internet browsers that he remembered, but something was different. It was wrong, somehow.
He felt wrong. That was the only way he knew to describe it.
What kind of wrong? he asked himself. Analysis of himself usually came right to him, but today it seemed to be dragging. Almost as if he couldn't think well. Then he remembered: the Spore was off. That was taking some getting used to. This kind of wrong was coming from deep down. It was touching off a memory --
-- of running towards the battle, Digivice flaring --
-- of denying that it could happen: impossible, I can't be outwit by a simpering Chosen! --
-- of throwing away his rules and betting it all --
-- the resulting surge of power, far off but coming closer --
-- it felt like this.
He recognised it for what it was; dark power. Ken wasn't sure where it came from but it had arrived right when the "VandeNet" thing had begun running. Disgusted, Ken turned it off with a swat on the mouse button. He ended up almost smashing the mouse entirely: he heard something crack when he hit the thing. He stared down at his hands fearfully. He hadn't meant to do that. It had just happened.
On impulse, he awakened the Dark Spore. 'Hey.'
It came fully awake right away -- one of its better qualities. 'Regent? Oh! Food!' With that, it proceeded to gorge itself on what it was that it ate -- excess dark energy. Almost immediately Ken felt better and whole again. 'I thought we weren't in the Digital World anymore,' the critter said. Ken caught on to that very quickly.
'We're not,' Ken sent back grimly. 'The Real World seems to have a source of darkness, too'
The little guy guy didn't seem to have the words to describe his joy, only digging into the excess dark energy that Ken was holding onto. When he had had the Spore looked at, they realized that it was developed to eat the excess darkness first, and that it made allowances for anyone to have some of their own. If it was running low on fuel, however, all of its restrictions were taken off and it would simply go for whatever it could eat. For his part, Ken shrugged mentally and stood up.
It was about then that he heard the voices. Two of them, definitely male, and definitely coming towards where he was. Rather than stay and try to explain his presence, Ken stood up abruptly and glanced around wildly, looking for a way out. He found one away and back out a door, while the voices were above him. Ken ran to the door, threw it open, and ran outside into the night and closed the door behind him. He then made tracks away from the house.
He got about thirty feet before he looked around himself, finding himself in a residential neighborhood of some sort. It was pitch black outside and not too warm; he also noticed that the street lamps weren't doing much to make things easier. They were either dim or completely out. The houses weren't lit too well either and he didn't see any power lines running to houses. In effect, it looked nothing like what he expected; it was a large group of isolated, dark houses.
He started trudging towards a large, bright conglomeration of lights some distance away. While he walked, he thought things over. He didn't have any assistance save for the disc that contained bank codes, he didn't know where he was, and he didn't have any idea what to do next. That wasn't a problem for him, though; he'd been in worse predicaments. The Internet was his goal here, but it seemed that it was being abused by some kind of dark power. For what purpose, Ken could only guess; but the fact that somebody was taking over the Internet or changing what it was set his blood boiling. He moved a mite faster towards the lights, anticipating some kind of information, but not hoping too hard: it was, after all, far too dark to be anything but the late, late hours of the night.
He arrived at the area some fifteen minutes later, only to discover that this particular store was marked "OPEN 24 HOURS" and that there was quite a group of people inside, judging by the lot full of cars. Thrusting his hands inside his pockets, he walked inside the store. The store was actually a vast business big enough to have a hair cuttery, an ATM, and even its own pizza place. It was certainly brightly lit for being so late at night; the area was full of people going about their business. They looked tired, but it was past midnight, so that was to be expected. He moved inside the store, looking around, feeling intimidated by how many people there were, but keeping his movement steady. He kept moving --
Abruptly, the Spore woke up. 'Regent, something's draining my energy away!'
This took Ken quite by surprise. 'What?!' He struggled briefly not to verbalize what he was trying to say to the Spore. 'How?'
'I don't know!' it wailed back. 'Something here is doing it! It's getting you, too -- can't you feel it?'
Ken shook his head, already on his way out the door. 'No. Tell me when it stops.'
They had reached the end of the registers and were ten steps from the door when the Spore responded. 'Much better,' it chirped. 'Good thing I ate so much earlier, huh?'
Ken nodded with a grim smirk on his face. 'Good thing.' He glanced around a bit, to take another look at the other humans. They looked tired, all right. Much too tired to be shopping. A theory began to bounce its way into his head and he only needed... there! An employee walked over to him; an older lady.
"Can I help you, son?" she asked in English. Her voice was also tired, but it had an emptiness that a more traditional tired lacked. Well, Ken thought distractedly, that's one mystery solved. He figured by the accent that he was somewhere in the northeastern United States.
"I only need the time, ma'am," he said politely and also in English. The woman glanced down at her watch.
"It's a few moments past seven, son," she said.
That hit him like a ton of bricks; stumbling, he found himself backpedaling slightly. "Are you alright?" she asked, less tired this time. "You're mighty pale, son."
He shook himself, tried to rally. "I'm okay, ma'am. I just thought it was later at night."
She looked at him. "Speak English, son." His eyebrows twitched; he hadn't even realized that he had switched to Japanese. Without another word he walked over to the pizza place and sat down hard in a booth. His thoughts were frozen, his reactions numb; all he could make out was --
What is going on here?!
****
"What do you mean, they got by the defenses?"
An unfortunate soldier / employee of the Odaiba Group was standing before the President and all three of his famous Assistants; this particular soldier had been chosen by his commander to deliver the news to the President. This task was not usually a difficult thing; but when the Assistants joined the President a debriefing usually turned into more of an interrogation. He cringed ever so slightly at the Assistant's question and answered in a shaky tone, "The resistance managed to make it through the defensive perimeter and strike into Factory #2, destroying it and its stockpile of ED reactors. They then withdrew from the area, masking their presence with the morning fog, sir."
The President remained motionless. The Assistant to the left of the President, a tall, lanky man, cocked his head to the right. "What of the plant workers?"
"They were already home for the night, sir. The night watchmen were found some distance away, stunned by stun rods or tasers."
The Assistant to the President's right spoke up; she was a haughty woman with an angry tone and a carefully modulated amount of scorn in her voice. "What happened that they were able to move by the defenses?"
"We're still working on that, sir, er, ma'am."
The President motioned to his assistants. "That will be enough, Private. The watchmen are at fault. You were and are merely doing your job. Dismissed." He waved off the soldier, who saluted and strode swiftly out of the room.
The final Assistant waited until the soldier had left before turning to the President and snorting. "So much for your game tonight. Do you doubt my analysis now?"
The female Assistant bit out, "Watch your tone!", but was waved down by the President. The President chuckled a bit, leaning back in his oversize chair.
"No, I don't suppose I do. It is quite clear that the watchmen system that we have set up now is quite inadequate. They are to be moved to a more profitable location while we conduct an extensive security sweep of the area." He motioned to the woman. "You are to take care of that." She nodded and, turning, stormed out of the area.
"She'll be furious for some time for that," the male Assistant noted. "She despises being proven wrong."
The President shook his head. "I think I have something that can make up for that." He glanced over at the third Assistant, still in the shadow. "Give me what you have on the digital situation." She came out from darkness and jumped on the table, looking the President in the eye.
"This is what we have," she began. "The Gate definitely sent a single person through, but that person didn't remain at the gate. I can safely say that the Emperor didn't send through a Digimon because we would have found it; therefore, I believe that it is some kind of automaton or robot, sent through to collect data for an as yet unknown reason. The Seals, interestingly enough, have lowered in power to about 35% of their normal level. If we want to punch through to the Digital World now is the time."
"Indeed," the President replied thoughtfully. "Get Lab 32 on this right away -- while I sincerely doubt that they can make it through the Seals even at that reduced powerlevel, they have produced the occasional miracle. Tell them to be extremely careful; the Seals will kill them if they attempt to break through prematurely." The Assistant saluted, jumped off the table, and ran off around the room to the elevator on the other side.
The final Assistant stood at silent attention, awaiting orders. The President didn't make a sound as the elevator descended. Silence fell on the two for a moment.
The elevator ascended and its new passenger walked out calmly into the main area. "You called?"
"You told me," the President began, steepling his fingers,"that the Resistance was too busy to attack a complex directly."
"I did," the person said.
"Why, therefore, is it that the complex where my employees were finished making the next generation of reactors has been reduced to ashes?"
"I couldn't discourage our leader," the person responded. "She holds you and yours responsible for the changes in our world."
The President straightened, looking the person right in the eye. "I suggest that you find a better way to assist me if you desire the end of this. My patience with the resistence grows thin; I want to see them out of action before I will cut back on reactor producion and energy broadcasting."
"I can't do everything, but this time I'll break the boat before I'll let them go off again. We've already lost too many people to this conflict; we can't lose more. I can't break her spirit directly so I'll simply slow it down as best as I can." The person seemed self-satisfied.
The President motioned towards the door. "I trust you, but I need to see results in exchange for that trust." Getting the message, the person turned and walked back to the elevator. The President turned to the slightly bewildered assistant and said, "Comments?"
"It's about the last thing that I expected, sir," the person replied truthfully. "I don't doubt your ability, but I had envisioned the resistance as being more tightly knit than that person has made it out to be."
The President sighed. "That person," he said, "is rather fully within our power."
"Like Squad A, sir?"
"Precisely."
"Orders?"
"Follow him to the base, and take Squad A and whatever backup you believe you require with you. Gut them like fish and bring any Chosen to me alive. Ideally, you'll get two of them. It remains to be seen whether the rest of them are there, but if they are we can go ahead with implementation that much faster."
The Assistant saluted. "Yes, sir!" he all but shouted, and left the room in a flourish.
All alone now, the President leaned back in the chair and pressed a button, and a projector activated itself. It showed for him the eight Crests of the Chosen and the progress he had made on each one. He examined each one in turn, then rotated the display away from himself, thinking all the while. He deactivated the projector and got up, walking over to the window. From here he could see the person he had talked to earlier walk right out the front door of his Tower.
The President shook his head. Such a waste...