Chapter 2: That's Odd!
"You caught some of them?" Cleaver asked.
Ash nodded. "I caught them. That's why I'm glad I found you in the hall."
"Where are they now?"
"Here," Ash answered, pulling a pokéball out of his backpack.
Tarquin looked at the ball. "I didn't know they came in that size."
"They don't. I don't know how anything can fit in one of these balls, but I know that they can. Let me show you," Ash said. He pulled out Totodile's pokéball and let him out. "Totodile is a lot bigger than the pokéball, but he can fit inside. I caught a couple menace machines in some of these pokéballs. I heard that you were on the research team, so I was wondering if you'd like to have the ones I've caught."
"Thanks, but…I don't know how a pokéball works."
"It's simple. They're voice-activated; you just say, 'pokéball, go!' and throw one."
Looking over the pokéballs, Cleaver answered, "…Okay. Um…do you have an empty one I could study? I'd like to know how exactly something fits inside. My first guess is a subspace pocket."
"Subspace pocket?"
Cleaver nodded. "I'll need to give you a little background on how subspace works. You know how pokémon, digimon, and Monsters have special attacks, where they release different types of energy, like heat or electricity or light, that seem to come out of nowhere? Well, that energy comes from their subspace matrices. The subspace matrix is some kind of body of matter that is in subspace, and that body in subspace is sort of a part of their normal-space bodies. Their subspace matrices interact with their normal-space bodies a lot, especially during special attacks or evolutions. Their subspace bodies are about as complex as cells are in normal-space. They can store energy and move from one place to another, but all the thinking and eating comes from the normal-space body's brain and mouth.
"The way evolutions work is this: DNA can be moved from the subspace body to the normal-space body, and, when a creature evolves, the DNA is removed from the normal body and replaced with DNA from the subspace matrix. At the same time, the matrix is giving out chemical energy and genetic protein information to the normal-space body so that the normal-space body can change into the next form. With Digidestined's digimon, some energy and genes are brought back into the matrix from normal-space when the digimon reverse-digivolve, and that partly makes up for the energy they spent digivolving.
"Anyhow, I have a guess so as to how the pokéball works: I think that either all or most of the body of one of your pokémon gets converted into subspace matter, and then the subspace matter is all drawn into the pokéball."
"I see," Ash said, his head spinning from the information overload. "But can you use the pokéballs and the machines I caught to study the menace machines?"
"I hope so. Probably."
******
When Davis is watching television, it seems to him as though the image on the screen of the TV set is the only thing in the universe that exists. You could tell this from the look on his face; I have already described what he looks like: "As though no brain existed behind his vacant expression." But what happens when someone switches off the TV while he's watching it? Izzy tried switching it off to get Davis off the couch, and Davis seemed to go into an even deeper trance. Izzy waved his hand in front of Davis's face, and Davis didn't react at all. Izzy shook Davis's shoulder, and finally he snapped out of his trance and looked at the person who had switched it off. It was no one he knew; he had red hair and wore an orange shirt. "Do you mind?!" Davis spat.
"Actually, I do: this is a humanitarian HQ, not a video lounge."
"This is too a video lounge!" Davis pointed out.
"Yeah, well, you're on assignment, not on vacation."
Davis rolled his eyes. "Who died to make you king, anyways?"
"I have seniority over you," he pointed out.
"Who are you anyways?"
"You don't recognize me?!"
Davis looked him over. "No. Should I?"
"I'm Izzy!"
For a moment, Davis stared at him blankly. Then it occurred to him that this might be Izzy, after all; time had messed up people's ages, so Izzy might end up being younger than he was. "I'm on…assignment?"
"Veemon has recovered his strength since he and Wormmon were Imperialdramon?"
"Yeah…"
"Then we need you to get to work."
"…What kind of work, exactly?"
"Seek Patrol."
" 'Seek Patrol'? What's that?!"
"Seek Patrol is this: you go out and look for people to take back to the orphanage and refugee center."
"Why? What's the problem with these people? What're they doing?"
"My guess is that they're trying to stay alive in a world full of bloodthirsty machines that are trying to eat them. The idea is to give them help; those machines will not come within half a kilometer of this nuke plant."
"Why not?"
"I don't know, but they never approach the plant."
"…So I find people and bring them here?"
"Exactly." Izzy handed him and Veemon backpacks full of supplies and shoved a flashlight and a folding umbrella into Davis's jacket pockets.
"What're those for?"
"The weather is more unpredictable than ever, and I don't mean that you can't guess the weather from one day to the next: I mean you can't guess the weather from one minute to the next. Everything is weird; it can rain out of a perfectly clear sky, and the temperature can be weird, too. If it gets too cold, there are blankets in your knapsacks. And time is messed up, too; you'll see what I mean once you're out there. And light can sometimes be just as weird as the weather; you never know where the sun will end up in the sky next. In fact, sometimes there is more than one sun in the sky, and then you'll need the umbrella for shade to keep from dying of skin cancer.
"If you meet any menace machines, then have Veemon digivolve and fly back here. They'll stop giving chase once you get within half a kilometer of here."
Davis shrugged. As he and Veemon walked out the nuke plant's doors, he said to Veemon, "I can't believe that Earth's population has been cut from twenty billion to…I don't know how small. I just can't get my head around that fact."
It was apparent that Davis was really struggling with the idea, so Veemon answered, "When reality around you changes, you have two choices: accept it or not accept it. I think you'd better accept it, Davis. Otherwise, while you're trying to convince yourself that it's not true, you'll end up in the stomach of one of these things."
"Good advice. So…why do you think they keep away from the nuclear power plant?"
Veemon shrugged. "Maybe they don't want to blow the thing up."
"Probably. …But why not? It would kill a whole bunch of people, and that's what they want, right?"
"Maybe it's not the people they're interested in. Maybe it's the planet."
Davis shrugged. "Maybe." After a few moments, they came across what looked like a minefield of puddles. The strangest thing was that there were shifting pools of light and darkness and of rain in the puddles. It was as if the clouds above them were forming a lava lamp-like pattern while still pouring their wet contents onto the ground.
"Weird," Davis muttered. He and Veemon spent the next few moments trying to navigate the puddles and keep dry. They failed: both of them ended up drenched, and Davis even lost his balance and fell facedown in the water. As he picked himself up, he heard a low "clack!" on the ground. Something had fallen, and it was the aforementioned folding umbrella.
"Looks like you forgot that you had an umbrella again," Veemon spat.
"You didn't remember, either!" Davis shot back. "C'mon. Let's get out of here."
After a few more minutes of drip-drying, they found themselves walking between two small buildings. Davis suddenly said, "I feel like we're being watched."
"Me, too," Veemon agreed. They two looked around, and they saw that behind them there was an army of female lawn gnomes. The gnomes weren't moving at all, and seemed to be harmless (though tacky) inanimate objects.
The two looked at each other blankly. "This fits in with all the other weird stuff we've been seeing," Veemon said.
Davis nodded. "No kidding. C'mon."
GAZRIITOR:
Nickname: Miss Gnomer (Misunōmā)
Real Name: Igno-tor-onbi
Caste: Unuyon Var'ka
Modes: One
Special Attacks:
Li'nota
Comments:
This breed of ator is used
largely for surveillance. Its sole attack is to make a small puncturing
spike extend from its mouth and lurch at people in the hopes that it does
damage (which it generally does not). Five of these combine to form an eye-dhole,
allowing it, on the odd occasion, to be used for ambush attacks.
Neither of them noticed, but, as they turned away and continued walking, the gnomes began following them. They quickly turned around and saw that the gnomes weren't where they had been before.
Davis looked at Veemon, and then gestured for them to continue. The gnomes tried to follow them again, of course, but Davis and Veemon knew what they were doing: Veemon turned to the right, and Davis rounded the left corner of the buildings before them. Once they were just out of sight of the Miss Gnomers, they broke into a sprint and lapped the sluggish gnomers in running around the buildings. Davis had found a broom during his lap, and he had picked it up and was using it to smash the Miss Gnomers to pieces from behind. Veemon was using his new attack: Vee boomerang. It was very similar to Hawkmon's Feather Strike: he took the yellow crest off his helmet and threw it at the Miss Gnomers. It went through the Miss Gnomers' chests and demolished a few rows of the army with every attack. Between Davis and Veemon, the Miss Gnomers were all history.
"Man, if those were menace machines, then they sure weren't very dangerous!" Davis commented with a chuckle.
"I think we'd better tell this to Izzy, anyway."
"Yeah: it'll be a good joke even if it's not useful." The two laughed.