Chapter 7:
Exacerbating circumstances call for exacerbating measures. (Look it up in the dictionary!)
The Little Teenaged Geek (not that he would know anything)
Kari was exhausted: she knew that this inner-city, American school was where she belonged, but this was definitely a "down" day. Her class had been a great deal rowdier than usual, thanks to the fact that the holographic television system in the school was down, and her short-attention-spanned class had pushed her to the breaking point. But, right when she was about to snap, an army soldier burst into the room. He asked her, in an imperative and formally military tone, "Are you Miss Kari Kamiya, ma'am?"
"Yes, I am," She answered in relief. She was expecting that he was there to help quiet the class, and that the class had gotten rowdy to the point where an armed soldier is required. (She certainly felt that it was that bad, and she also felt that she owed a big favor to the principal for calling in the military to help.) But, before the children could even mob the soldier to ask him all sorts of questions about his wicked-looking rifle, he was dragging her out of the room along with a few other soldiers, and, all the while, a sergeant was shouting to the soldiers, "GO-GO-GO!"
One of the more wise-guy-type students shook his head and said out loud as he looked at his teacher being dragged away, "I knew this day would come."
To add to the insulting nature of this situation, another one of the kindergarteners got up, ran to the door, and shouted down the hall, "GO-GO-GO!" in the precise same tone that the sergeant had used on his troops seconds ago.
Furthermore, the sergeant added to the child's comment, "You heard the man!"
The child walked back into the classroom with an ear-to-ear smile on his face: "An army drill sergeant just called me a man!"
Kari now felt even more kicked-around: the soldiers had handed her the D3 she had used as a child and stuffed her into a military jeep with zero explanation. She didn't know what was going on at all, but it obviously wasn't good. She asked the driver of the jeep, "Could I please get back to my class soon after this? What's going on, here?"
"I don't know, myself. All information is given to all personnel---including you---on a need-to-know basis."
"Hey, I need to know!"
"Well, you won't find out from me; they didn't tell me!"
"Are they ever going to tell me?"
The driver shrugged.
Kari leaned back in her seat and sighed.
"Hey, it's a living!" the driver shot back.
This is no way to live, Kari thought to herself. She looked out the jeep's windows. She was in a camp that was full of empty tents. The camp was only sparsely populated with a few army personnel, who were carrying around boxes of supplies. The camp was huge, probably capable of housing a few thousand people. Kari was perplexed: what was this camp doing here?
Her situation got worse: when the jeep stopped, a few soldiers rudely grabbed her by the arm and brought her into a tent that was in the middle of the camp. Six of the old-style, electric-circuit computers were set up in the room. Strangely, Davis, Ken, Yolei, Cody, and T.K., some friends of hers from her childhood (not to mention other D3-bearing Digidestined), were also there, and seemed to have been yanked from their homes and daily lives in similar, awful ways.
A lieutenant who had been anxiously pacing the floor looked up at a clerk officer who was with him. He asked, "Is this the last one?"
"It is, sir."
"Good. Miss Kamiya, I think you had better take a seat."
Kari was reluctant to do one thing the army told her to do at this point, but she sat on the couch that was in the middle of the room. What she couldn't figure out was what good a group of Digidestined could do without their digimon: not one of their digimon was with them.
"It's high time you were given an explanation for this." All the Digidestined (except for Yolei and Ken) interrupted him with words of agreement. "You are participating in a covert rescue mission. We have a situation on our hands that requires your assistance." The lieutenant said this as though it was total justification for the army's taking them away from their homes. "You see, someone has stolen---from a scientific institution---a very important piece of data pertaining to the Digiworld. This data is highly destructive, and we believe that it was most likely stolen by a terrorist organization that intends to use it to destroy a single city or group of cities to gain political clout. As science has yet to find a way to open a digi-port without the aid of a D3 digivice, and we cannot quietly use Malomyotismon's permanent digi-port, your job is to remain available 24/7 to open digi-ports in the event that the terrorists choose to attack a city. Now, as we will have zero warning before these attacks, you will be available at all times, and we have provided portable toilets and shower stalls with curtained holes in the sides that you will be able to stick your arm out with your digivice in hand and open up digiports even if you're inside."
Kari's face went pale upon the following realization: there is a great deal more evil in the world than she'd ever thought: there was evil in the army's crime of yanking her out of her life! She would've cooperated with the army if they'd asked nicely! And there was evil in what whoever had stolen the data was planning to do with it. There was evil in the suffering that would be caused if the terrorists used the data. And there was evil in the way she had to live for the next while, too: waiting for a disaster that could not be prevented---and one that the government couldn't even warn the people about. She leaned forward and put her face in her hands.
A warm hand patted her on the back. Davis's voice said, "Relax, Kari! It's not going to be that bad! I mean, look at all the videos they've brought us!"
"I'm not a professional couch-potato like you are, Davis!" Kari shot back. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to enjoy this…"
It had been several days since her mother had been yanked out of their home. Tina was trying to get to sleep, but umpteen different things weighed heavily on her mind the way a piano weighs down a lawnmower. That plus the fact that an uncomfortably loud thunderstorm was outside made it impossible to sleep. She had tossed and turned and had already emptied her eyes into her now salty-tasting pillow, but she still couldn't get to sleep. Finally, a little voice inside her head said, "Enough of this! You're a strong girl, and it's time you quit wallowing in self-pity." So she got up and set herself down in front of the house's computer terminal: she was going to wear herself out and get to sleep, one way or another. One way to do this was to play violent, flashy video games that are so bad for your eyes that they need a surgeon general's warning on the title screen.
Just as she was firing the (hopefully) final missile blast at the evil alien boss, she heard a shrill whistle coming from outside. What was that? An animal? A digimon? It stole her attention away from the game just long enough for the alien to blow her character to bits. "Aw, man!" Tina switched off the game and set her attention to outside the house. She heard the whistle again. Whatever it was, it shouldn't be out there! It was a night unfit for man nor beast nor digimon! She dashed to the door and pulled on her boots.
Just as she had snapped the final button of her raincoat and was about to put her rainhat over her stubble-covered scalp, she heard Hawkmon, hands on hips, saying, "Just where do you think you're going! To a friend's house! It's far too late for that, young lady, and if your mother knew that I was letting you go out after eleven o'clock and in this weather, I'd never hear the end of it."
"It's nothing like that, Hawkmon; I heard something outside, like an animal or a digimon, or something. All I wanted to do was get it out of the rain."
"I'm sure that's all." Hawkmon refused to believe Tina's story until she heard the loud whistle for herself. Then she fetched an umbrella and a flashlight before going outside to see what it was…