97
Talking to Gennai
"I repeat to you, gentlemen, that your inquisition is fruitless…Everything that I can remember, I have told with perfect candour. Nothing has been distorted or concealed, and if anything remains vague, it is only because of the dark cloud which has come over my mind – that cloud and the nebulous nature of the horrors which brought it upon me." – H. P. Lovecraft, "The Statement of Randolph Carter"
From the time Jou walked into his room, leaving Gomamon in the dinette with Mrs. Izumi, Koshiro wasted no time in opening the gate for Gennai. A shimmering glow flooded the room from the laptop, and when it faded the visitor stood before them in the form they had last met him in, a young man robed in white.
"Hello, Koshiro, Jou," he said, nodding to them each in turn. "It's good to see you again, but I wish the circumstances were better."
"I'm sure we all do, Gennai-san," Koshiro answered.
"There's still no news about the others, is there?" Jou asked.
"I'm afraid not," Gennai said. "We haven't been able yet to confirm what world they might be in."
"It's still possible that we may find them in this world," Koshiro said, "but there's a chance that they've been taken to that other world that Hikari-san once entered." Gennai nodded. "If that were the case," Koshiro continued, "would there be any way to look for or follow them?"
"I'm afraid not," Gennai answered. "That is," he corrected himself, "no way that we know of. Even the power of the Holy Beasts is very limited in the World of Darkness. We will work on a solution, but hopefully they have returned to the Real World."
"Even then, they could be anywhere," Jou observed. "There's a good chance they might have been moved out of Tokyo, since we didn't find them at the enemy's hideout last night. And those Digimon that are still out there. They won't make it any easier on us."
"There's a possibility that they might," Koshiro said. "Something as large and strange-looking as the monster that attacked Ugaki Chiho-san and the others must have a place to stay during the daytime. If we could track it down…" He looked to Gennai. "That's something that's been puzzling me," he said. "Usually when a powerful Digimon appears in the human world they can be detected by the way they interfere with electronic equipment, but this time there haven't been any reports of anything like that. Can you explain it, Gennai-san?"
"I can't say for certain," Gennai replied. "Possibly the enemy has found a way to keep their energies in check. We still have little idea what they might be capable of, or how they are able to do what they've done."
"Like those dreams," Jou said. "They aren't normal. They feel too real, different from other dreams."
Gennai only nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Actually, Gennai-san," Koshiro said, looking thoughtful in turn, "A dream I had last night is part of the reason I requested this meeting." He paused, frowning into space. "I don't know if it means anything, but all of these dreams seem to have connections to our past experiences, and… Well, anyway, you were in that dream, Gennai-san, and you said that I haven't been asking the right questions. Does that mean anything to you?"
Now Gennai frowned in thought. "…No," he said at last.
"In the dream we talked about Ichijouji-kun, and Millenniumon," Koshiro persisted.
There was another pause, but then Gennai smiled ruefully. "I see… We're very selfish, aren't we?" he said, almost as if to himself.
"G-Gennai-san?"
Jou turned to look at Koshiro, surprised by the change in his voice. He could see that his friend had gone pale. "Koshiro? Is something wrong?" he asked.
"I…" Koshiro began, still looking at Gennai, whose smile had been replaced by a look of concern. "I'm awake," Koshiro whispered to himself. "I remember how I got here. I… live here."
"What's wrong, Koshiro?" Gennai asked.
"I'm sorry, Gennai-san, Jou-san," Koshiro said. "It's only that… you just said something you said in the dream. I thought… that maybe I was dreaming now."
Jou felt a chill run through him. Now that the idea had occurred to him, he suddenly had to face the same doubts.
"Something that was said in your dream…" Gennai said, thoughtfully. "That's a thought I've been carrying around for a long time, but I've never said it before. If the enemy is producing these dreams, how were they able to know what has been on my mind?"
Koshiro, who was beginning to recover from his shock, latched on to this new problem. He composed himself and said, "It seems like it could be a psychic phenomenon. Now that I think about it, there have been things in these dreams that should have only been known to ourselves. At first my theory was that the dreams' content was drawn from our subconscious, like normal dreams, but then the same people appeared to different dreamers, and if a dream has let me know Gennai-san's thoughts…" He trailed off and looked at Gennai.
"I have heard of some Digimon with abilities that might be called psychic in the Real World," Gennai said. "There could be a Digimon with psychic abilities on the enemy's side. It might explain the dreams, but the psychic power needed would be incredible."
"Could it be more than one?" Jou asked. "Or, if those people who show up in the dreams really exist, maybe they're psychic humans?"
"Either might be a possibility," Gennai said.
For a moment there was silence as the three pondered. Koshiro broke it.
"Gennai-san, do you remember when we talked about what happened in Pinocchimon's forest, when an unknown intelligence used Hikari-san to stop the battle between WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon?"
Gennai nodded.
"I always wondered why Hikari-san was the only person that could communicate with that intelligence. It said that only she had been able to hear it. And Taichi-san told me that even before we went to summer camp, Hikari-san had been able to see the Digimon in the human world. I thought that maybe she was able to sense these things because of her affinity with the power of light, but now I'm wondering if she also might have psychic abilities."
"That… does actually make sense," Jou said.
"She was also the first of our group to be drawn into that dark other world, even without the Dark Seed," Koshiro continued. "I don't know if there's a connection." He frowned. "I'm sorry," he said. "This isn't really helping. Maybe I really don't ask the right questions."
"We don't have any way of knowing, do we?" Jou asked. "We can't tell what information will be useful in the end."
"Yes, but I wish I knew what I needed to understand," Koshiro said in a low voice. "It's more important now than ever." He was thinking back to his first adventure in the Digital World. Absorbed in his questions and theories, there had been times when he had ignored more pressing issues and neglected his friends. Now he couldn't afford to lose sight of what mattered. What good was knowledge if it couldn't be used to help people?
"Any knowledge may help us eventually," Gennai said. "We must know the enemy in order to fight it."
"Unfortunately, right now, we don't even know who the enemy is," Jou said. "Do you have any idea, Gennai-san?"
"All I have are guesses," Gennai answered. "The situation is unlike any I've seen before. An enemy that attacks through dreams is possible in the Digital World, but from what information we can gather this seems to be a global phenomenon. That's unusual."
"Yes, I've gotten emails from Chosen Children in other countries," Koshiro said. "They're having the dreams as well." There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. "And there's something else that's been bothering me. There's no doubt now that there are humans working with the enemy Digimon."
"Those photos," Jou agreed grimly, remembering the pictures of the Chosen Children that they'd seen amid the horrors of Lilithmon's lair.
"The evidence points to a relatively large organization," Koshiro continued. "Could they have come into contact with Digimon last December?"
"But to put all this in motion in less than a year…" Jou murmured, shaking his head.
"It does seem rather fast," Gennai said. "I have a feeling that it may go farther back than that. Maybe this group has existed for a long time, waiting until the Digital World's defenses – and your world's – were at their weakest." His mouth compressed into a line and a hard look came into his eyes. "We should have been better prepared. The number of Chosen Children kept growing, but we didn't make any effort to make sure they were ready for battle."
"Shuu-niisan's partner still hasn't reached Child level," Jou said, nervously running a hand through his hair.
"If we get through this," Gennai said, "we'll have to make sure that nothing else falls through the cracks."
"The Digimon Kaiser!" Koshiro exclaimed, connecting Gennai's words to his earlier thoughts and the previous night's dream. He looked at Gennai and asked, a little apologetically, "You did know, didn't you? That Ichijouji-kun was the Kaiser?"
"Yes," Gennai answered. "We did."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Jou asked.
"We didn't think it would do any good," Gennai said. "The Chosen Children had never fought a human before. If they knew the Kaiser's identity, they could have confronted him in this world, but it wouldn't have helped. Like with the children implanted with the Dark Seed copies. The best we could hope for was that a military defeat in the Digital World would bring Ken back to his senses. It was a risk we had to take, but I'm sorry all the same."
"I can understand…" Koshiro murmured, trailing off doubtfully.
"It's alright to ask," Gennai said, a trace of a smile returning to his face. "There are a few other things that I've kept from you. Most of the story you already know, but there are other things. Wallace, for example."
"The American Chosen Child?" Koshiro asked.
"Yes. He didn't receive his Digivice after the 1999 incident, as the others did. We gave it to him – my fellow Agents and I – in 1995."
"You mean, before we got ours?" Koshiro said, surprised. "That was the year we first saw the Digimon at Hikarigaoka."
"But why?" Jou asked.
"It was a test," Gennai answered. "His was the first Digivice ever made. Before the Chosen Children faced the Dark Masters it was necessary to make sure that their Digivices would work properly. Watching from the Digital World, we were able to verify that it allowed his partners to evolve to the Baby II level. Unfortunately, it was not long afterward that the Dark Masters discovered us."
"Do you know what happened to his partner?" Koshiro asked.
"No," Gennai said. "That was after I had gone into hiding. I didn't have the resources to continue the test, or even to send the other Digivices to the human world. I could only trust that the powers guarding the Digital World would do so when the time was right."
Koshiro would have taken up the conversation, asking about those powers, but was stopped by Gennai's expression. In the process of having regained the appearance of youth, Gennai's face had lost much of its former inscrutability. It was clear now that he was hesitating. There was something else he wanted to say. Jou must have seen it too, because there was silence until Gennai made up his mind to speak.
"But it wasn't Wallace that I was going to talk to you about," he said at last. "You remember the story of the Chosen Children that came before you?"
They nodded, and he continued.
"I've been wondering about what happened to them, and why they didn't resurface after 1999. It may be that the enemy we are now facing learned of the Digital World through contact with those Chosen Children. They may be prisoners of the group, or they may be dead."
"It could be…" Koshiro said.
"That would be awful," Jou said, with a sickened grimace. "They had to have just been kids, like we were."
"Yes, but I think it could easily be true," Gennai said. "It would explain things. Not entirely, but it fits in the known timeline… That's what I felt I should tell you."
A long silence followed. There didn't seem to be much left to say. They could speculate, Gennai could reveal his secrets, but in the end the terrible fact remained – none of them knew the truth. Koshiro's memory of his dream mocked him. Maybe now he was asking the right questions, but there were no answers coming.