Chapter Eighteen
--Ienji--
Ienji opened the apartment door cautiously. Not that he felt he had much to fear from his mother, if she were home; it was just his general mood.
"Welcome home, dear," he heard his mother say as he opened the door. He stepped inside and saw that she was filling out some forms on the couch. "Home already? Time goes by so quickly. Did anything interesting happen at school today?"
Ienji hesitated before responding. "Uh.... yes, actually. There was a disturbance; I don't know exactly what happened. I only heard reports," he lied. "We were dismissed early."
She glanced up at him and sent him a motherly smile with hint of curiosity. "Oh? I guess I'll hear about it soon enough."
He nodded absently, as though in affirmation. He set his backpack aside for a moment and began his after-school ritual of taking out schoolbooks and setting them on the counter, then re-packing miscellaneous personal items.
After a minute, Ienji slung it back over his shoulder, and turned to his mother. "I'm going to bike over to the library for a while longer, okay?"
His mother smiled. "Fine with me. Make sure you're home in time for dinner."
--Evan--
Meanwhile, Evan had traveled back to the high school. He discovered that they had indeed dismissed the kids early, and there were quite a few cop cars around. He decided that it would be too difficult to enter in order to set up digital 'monitors' to discern digidestined from every other kid.
With this thought in mind, he decided to set base in the middle school and then the secondary elementary school. The most common ages of digidestined were between nine and fourteen, but earlier that day he'd seen with his own eye the presence of at least a dozen digidestined--not potentials, digidestined--at Siojaton High School, so there was no telling how things worked.
Evan suspected that the age range of potentials had been shifted from 9-14 to 12-17; he couldn't confirm it, but it would make sense if it were so. From what he knew of the patterns.... of course, he didn't know much.
It was a brisk walk alongside a school field to reach the middle school. Despite the hubbub and controversy of the events in the high school, this other school appeared as normal and active as ever. He saw a fair number of cars in the middle school parking lot, and sensed that perhaps a few after-school activities had been moved from the high school to the middle school.
No one stopped him as he walked through the double-door and into the main hall of the Siojaton Middle School. Taking in the sight of the decorated hallway, Evan renewed his effort to find a prime location to set up monitors.
--Ienji--
Ienji walked in a few minutes before his book-shelving shift began. As he walked up to his boss, the librarian Mrs. Fujimaka, she frowned at his arrival.
"What are you doing here, Ien?" she asked him. "You called in last night to tell me you'd become ill and needed to take the day off."
As she said this, he suddenly remembered talking to her last night, as though in a trance; it seemed the memory of a dream.
Thinking quickly, he replied, "That's just it--the illness has passed out of me, just as quickly as it came upon me. So," he almost fumbled, "I was wondering if you still needed me for anything."
In truth, he'd come to the library to research some of these strange phenomena to which he'd been introduced over the past few days--spirits, other worlds, anything that struck him.
The woman smiled in pleasant surprise. "Well, Jean offered to take your shift, but if you'd like, you could move some of these heavier crates to the back. There'd be no money for the library to pay you, of course," she added.
Ienji felt there was only one thing he could say. "Sure. I'd be glad to help."
--Evan--
Evan moved through the halls at a brisk pace; he attracted less attention than he would normally, he surmised, because of all the other high-schoolers who had temporarily set up shop in the middle school.
He didn't need to use his GD to sense where an ideal location for the monitor would be; his empathy would do for that. Residual empathy allowed him to figure out which places were most popular for students to hang out.
After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he felt much residual empathy past the door to his left. He opened it.
--Ienji--
Ienji had been directed by the other on-duty librarian, Mr. Sayomoru, to where the boxes were located, adjacent to the basement of the building.
"These are the encyclopedia assortments the library ordered by catalog three months past, Ien," the man told him. "So, be careful with them."
"I will," Ienji replied with a brisk nod. "Thank you, Mr. Sayomoru."
The man smiled fondly at the kid for a moment before heading back to his post.
Turning back to the boxes, Ienji reached to pick one up. He heaved it up with relative ease; he wasn't a weight-lifter, but he did exercise, and naturally provided for a decent amount of muscle tissue.
He stepped warily as he moved the box down the narrow basement hallway and set it outside the door to the reference room. There were a few dozen boxes stacked, so he anticipated at least another half-hour of work to be done.
On his third box, Ienji accidentally misstepped, and the box fell three feet to the floor as he attempted to right himself. But instead of hearing the dull thud of thick volumes, he heard a metallic clank.
His task momentarily sidetracked, Ienji frowned. A metallic clink? He must have misheard. He looked over and checked the label on the return address.
"It says 'Burkenstein Reference Materials, Inc.; Tokyo, Japan'," he muttered. "I must be imagining things...."
Over the next thirty-five minutes, he moved the rest of the boxes into place.
--Ienji--
Ienji opened the apartment door cautiously. Not that he felt he had much to fear from his mother, if she were home; it was just his general mood.
"Welcome home, dear," he heard his mother say as he opened the door. He stepped inside and saw that she was filling out some forms on the couch. "Home already? Time goes by so quickly. Did anything interesting happen at school today?"
Ienji hesitated before responding. "Uh.... yes, actually. There was a disturbance; I don't know exactly what happened. I only heard reports," he lied. "We were dismissed early."
She glanced up at him and sent him a motherly smile with hint of curiosity. "Oh? I guess I'll hear about it soon enough."
He nodded absently, as though in affirmation. He set his backpack aside for a moment and began his after-school ritual of taking out schoolbooks and setting them on the counter, then re-packing miscellaneous personal items.
After a minute, Ienji slung it back over his shoulder, and turned to his mother. "I'm going to bike over to the library for a while longer, okay?"
His mother smiled. "Fine with me. Make sure you're home in time for dinner."
--Evan--
Meanwhile, Evan had traveled back to the high school. He discovered that they had indeed dismissed the kids early, and there were quite a few cop cars around. He decided that it would be too difficult to enter in order to set up digital 'monitors' to discern digidestined from every other kid.
With this thought in mind, he decided to set base in the middle school and then the secondary elementary school. The most common ages of digidestined were between nine and fourteen, but earlier that day he'd seen with his own eye the presence of at least a dozen digidestined--not potentials, digidestined--at Siojaton High School, so there was no telling how things worked.
Evan suspected that the age range of potentials had been shifted from 9-14 to 12-17; he couldn't confirm it, but it would make sense if it were so. From what he knew of the patterns.... of course, he didn't know much.
It was a brisk walk alongside a school field to reach the middle school. Despite the hubbub and controversy of the events in the high school, this other school appeared as normal and active as ever. He saw a fair number of cars in the middle school parking lot, and sensed that perhaps a few after-school activities had been moved from the high school to the middle school.
No one stopped him as he walked through the double-door and into the main hall of the Siojaton Middle School. Taking in the sight of the decorated hallway, Evan renewed his effort to find a prime location to set up monitors.
--Ienji--
Ienji walked in a few minutes before his book-shelving shift began. As he walked up to his boss, the librarian Mrs. Fujimaka, she frowned at his arrival.
"What are you doing here, Ien?" she asked him. "You called in last night to tell me you'd become ill and needed to take the day off."
As she said this, he suddenly remembered talking to her last night, as though in a trance; it seemed the memory of a dream.
Thinking quickly, he replied, "That's just it--the illness has passed out of me, just as quickly as it came upon me. So," he almost fumbled, "I was wondering if you still needed me for anything."
In truth, he'd come to the library to research some of these strange phenomena to which he'd been introduced over the past few days--spirits, other worlds, anything that struck him.
The woman smiled in pleasant surprise. "Well, Jean offered to take your shift, but if you'd like, you could move some of these heavier crates to the back. There'd be no money for the library to pay you, of course," she added.
Ienji felt there was only one thing he could say. "Sure. I'd be glad to help."
--Evan--
Evan moved through the halls at a brisk pace; he attracted less attention than he would normally, he surmised, because of all the other high-schoolers who had temporarily set up shop in the middle school.
He didn't need to use his GD to sense where an ideal location for the monitor would be; his empathy would do for that. Residual empathy allowed him to figure out which places were most popular for students to hang out.
After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he felt much residual empathy past the door to his left. He opened it.
--Ienji--
Ienji had been directed by the other on-duty librarian, Mr. Sayomoru, to where the boxes were located, adjacent to the basement of the building.
"These are the encyclopedia assortments the library ordered by catalog three months past, Ien," the man told him. "So, be careful with them."
"I will," Ienji replied with a brisk nod. "Thank you, Mr. Sayomoru."
The man smiled fondly at the kid for a moment before heading back to his post.
Turning back to the boxes, Ienji reached to pick one up. He heaved it up with relative ease; he wasn't a weight-lifter, but he did exercise, and naturally provided for a decent amount of muscle tissue.
He stepped warily as he moved the box down the narrow basement hallway and set it outside the door to the reference room. There were a few dozen boxes stacked, so he anticipated at least another half-hour of work to be done.
On his third box, Ienji accidentally misstepped, and the box fell three feet to the floor as he attempted to right himself. But instead of hearing the dull thud of thick volumes, he heard a metallic clank.
His task momentarily sidetracked, Ienji frowned. A metallic clink? He must have misheard. He looked over and checked the label on the return address.
"It says 'Burkenstein Reference Materials, Inc.; Tokyo, Japan'," he muttered. "I must be imagining things...."
Over the next thirty-five minutes, he moved the rest of the boxes into place.