105

Catch and Release

"And they could harry the brain itself, driving it to extremes more terrible than madness; and could take away the dearest treasures of memory and leave unutterable foulness in their place." – Clark Ashton Smith, "The Isle of the Torturers"

The six children and their partners met up at Yamato's apartment, chosen because his father was at work and would be for some time. They'd been a little reluctant to allow BlackTailmon into one of their homes, but it couldn't be helped.

"She says she doesn't know if there are any other places besides the one we visited," Taichi began, indicating her.

He could tell from his friends' faces that they understood. Unless they came across any other leads, their only chance of finding the missing Chosen Children was to return to the building where Lilithmon had set up her grisly exhibits.

"The police didn't find anything there," Jou said, not so much to protest as to simply state a fact.

"Maybe not," Koshiro said, "but we don't know how intensive their search was. We only made an anonymous call. Maybe they didn't expect to find anything."

"If we did go back," Yamato said, "we could make sure we looked the whole place over."

"That's right," added Gabumon. "As Digimon, we'll be able to get through any walls or doors."

"I just hope we can find them this time," Mimi said quietly. "I couldn't stand it being like last night again."

The others were silent a moment, expressions solemn. Failing to locate their friends would be harder to face than any new battle or horror. Sora happened to catch a glimpse of Taichi's face, and felt that she should say something.

"Even if Hikari-chan and the others aren't there," she suggested, "we might be able to find information about where they are."

"We can get to the Digital World, if they happen to be there," Koshiro said, remembering something Gennai had said before leaving. "We could use a D-3 belonging to one of the Chosen Children from New Year's." For the moment he neglected to add that if, on the other hand, Daisuke and the rest were in some place neither the Real nor Digital World, there was no known way to reach them.

"Alright," Taichi said. "So we have to go back." He paused. No one contradicted him, and he continued, "We should go now, as soon as possible. The faster we can rescue everyone the better."

"I agree," Yamato said, "But we need a plan."

"What are we going to do about that Digimon?" Jou asked, pointing to BlackTailmon, who still said nothing. "We can't really just follow her there. It could be a trap, and even if it's not she might help the enemy."

"You know how to get in, then?" BlackTailmon asked.

"We got out last night," Taichi reminded her, his look suspicious. "Getting back in won't be a problem."

"Maybe one of us should keep watch on her?" Mimi suggested. The others considered, unsure. It occurred to many of them that they'd never taken prisoners in the past.

"BlackTailmon isn't of any real use to us," Koshiro said, using the name the Digimon Analyzer had provided. "If we keep her out of trouble until the battle's over…"

"And then we just let her go," said Taichi. The others looked at him, a little surprised that he didn't seem irritated by the idea after his threats on the previous evening. They didn't know about the inner turmoil he'd been facing since cornering his enemy. He had decided that, whatever BlackTailmon's past offences may have been, he would not allow himself to kill her in cold blood. He doubted if she would have the same scruples, and there was nothing he wanted to have in common with her and the greater monsters behind her.

Meanwhile, the object of discussion remained uncharacteristically silent. But she was listening to the conversation intently, while in the back of her mind she continued to mull over the ideas that had come to her back on the mainland. Somehow the Chosen Children had achieved the impossible and destroyed Lilithmon. And that fact raised the first serious doubts in BlackTailmon's mind. If they could defeat Lilithmon, there was a chance that they might come out ahead after all, which could be bad news for her.

Now, imagining a power stronger and more terrible than Lilithmon's was a stretch on BlackTailmon's limited imagination, but she had reason to believe that it existed. Callous though she was, she sometimes shivered to remember the image of the black, smiling figure seen in the dim firelight of the Arkham woods. The Dark Man had commanded Lilithmon, and it was his power that the Chosen Children would face next. Surely against him they would fail… unless they didn't. BlackTailmon had become uncertain now as to which side might win in the end, and she needed to make sure that she was on it – or at least not afoul of it – when the time came.

As she listened, the Chosen Children continued to determine the details of their strategy. Once everything was ready they would start out. With them they would take BlackTailmon, for part of their mission, and take the burden of their cautious hopes and unspoken fears, until the mission's unknown end.

Awareness returned more quickly than it had originally. By this time Miyako's pain was nearly gone, though many places were still tingling unpleasantly as the poison slowly wore off. Her period of unconsciousness had been dreamless, although at first the whispered voices might have been the start of something unreal. Then there was a light touch on her shoulder, and she opened her eyes. The room was still dark, somewhere between that first total blackness and the lucid twilight that had preceded the Troopmon's arrival.

In the dimness she could make out a pair of human forms. Was she actually dreaming, then? Or did she really see Hikari and Ken standing there in front of her?

"Miyako-san, thank goodness you're alright," Hikari whispered, seeing her awake.

"H-Hikari-chan," Miyako stammered, her voice sounding a little louder than she had intended it to. "But how…?"

"We can explain later," Ken whispered, with a nervous glance over his shoulder. Hikari nodded as she set about unlatching one of Miyako's handcuffs with her hairclip.

"Right now we need to find the others," she said.

Miyako was fully awake now, no doubt about it. What had happened she couldn't guess, but against all odds her friends were here. Thinking about it, she was actually a little glad of the relative darkness. As it was, she blushed a little at Ken-kun's seeing her in what was practically a state of undress.

The liberation process took a while. Hikari fumbled for some time with the first handcuff, and a briefer time with the second, but eventually both were off and Miyako was – to an extent – free. She groaned a little as she rubbed her sore wrists, but didn't ask any of the many burning questions she had. Something in her friends' bearing made it seem essential to keep quiet.

They led her towards a deeper darkness that marked the room's exit, much narrower now than when the Raremon had made its entrance. Hikari went ahead, followed by Ken, who again took Miyako's hand as he had in the tunnel beneath the surface of the Digital World.

"We don't think they know we've escaped," he whispered as they walked quietly down a narrow hallway. "Motomiya and the rest should be nearby."

"How did you—" Miyako began, but stopped with a gasp at a sound from up ahead. Ken's hand slipped from her grip and caught her wrist as if in warning. It was hard to say exactly what they had heard. All was silent now that the three of them had stopped moving, and nothing could be seen in the blackness of the corridor.

Then there was a sudden change. As one moment passed to the next Miyako found herself once again in a room lit by gray pseudo-light. A handcuff had replaced the hand around her wrist – around both wrists. She might have believed herself cruelly snatched from the midst of a dream, but the strange thing was that Ken and Hikari really were there. They didn't say anything, only stood there, smiling.

"Hikari-chan… Ken-kun?" Miyako murmured, but they didn't answer. A few seconds passed. She felt a little like squirming under their unreadable gaze. Her discomfort grew as they continued to stare, and in looking nervously back at them she began to feel afraid. There was something strange about the way they looked. Their skin was very pale, even for this pallid world. Against the dark background they had a startling whiteness that they had not had earlier. Or was there some color creeping in after all? Not a normal one – a color with hints of blue or green. Now their skin looked puffy, and she realized that there was a definite change coming over them.

The change accelerated. She could see now what was wrong: they were dead. And yet they stood, stepped closer, as the puffiness sank into an unnatural gauntness. Miyako pulled back on the handcuffs, but there was no slack. She was not handcuffed; her hands were encased in the stone pillars. She didn't have any words for a situation like this – all that came out were little screams and whimpers as the decaying things closed in. When little pieces of them began to fall off, she squeezed her eyes tight against what had to be a nightmare.

For a few seconds she saw and heard nothing. Then her eyes forced themselves open a little. The horrors were still there. The bony claw of Ken's living cadaver fell on her shoulder and held her still with inhuman strength. Dead Hikari's smile widened as she raised her hand, the moist flesh eaten through by invisible worms. The hand came forward, and in a voice that blended Hikari's normally sweet tones with unmistakable evil its owner said, "Open up, Miyako-san."

Something seemed to snap when that thing touched her lips. Choking on a scream of revulsion, Miyako noticed that again the room had reset itself. A new clarity cut through the nightmare quality of her experience – again her hands were only cuffed, not locked in stone. Hikari and Ken weren't there, either dead or alive, but there was something, something maybe more terrible than the living corpses.

It wasn't like anything she or her friends had ever seen before. A single bloodshot eye, nearly a yard across, glared at her. She could even see herself reflected in its green iris and black pupil. From a bulbous body stretched spidery, segmented legs, claws clicking on the stone floor. But worst of all were the tentacles. They were everywhere – green, nasty things in constant feverish motion, squirming around her and on her. She writhed about in a panicked attempt to dislodge them, but they continued to crawl and nauseously tickle.

"Oh, stop that," a wheedling voice said, seeming to come from the bug-thing. "It's no use, you know. You're already…" and it broke off into tittering laughter. Even as it was speaking Miyako had noticed an unmoving something on her back, as if it were somehow glued to her. Long purplish appendages reached around from behind her, flickered before her in febrile motion, one of them jabbing her in the stomach. Something awful was latched onto her.

Crying out with the sudden pain of being poked and the disgust and horror of it all, Miyako noticed a cloudiness coming over her vision. The monster before her faded, grew insubstantial, and disappeared, while her sensations also seemed to drain slowly away. She couldn't feel the writhing tendrils or the solid mass at her back. Eventually even the handcuffs had disappeared, and she stood alone and shivering in a gray featureless void.

Her pulse still pounding, she looked quickly about her, but there was only grayness in every direction.

"Wh…what's going on!?" she cried. "Am I… am I going crazy?"

A profound coldness went through her when the question was answered by a little giggle in the otherwise absolute silence. It started low and ended louder, but she had no idea what direction it came from. It seemed to sound right in her ear, like the whine of a mosquito, but she couldn't be sure that it wasn't actually inside her head.

"You're not crazy," the thing that laughed said in the whining, droning voice of the insectoid horror. "Not yet. Can't have you go crazy yet. That will take time, yes, take time. We have a long way to go."

"What… is… this?" Miyako whimpered.

"I'm inside," the too-close voice said. "What don't you want to see? What don't you want to feel? Your brain is my toy! Here, see – remember that partner Digimon."

Startled, Miyako did automatically as it asked. She thought of Haw… of Ho… but she couldn't remember his name. Desperately she tried to bring up an image of what he looked like, but there was only an absence at her side. She thought of the miniature bed at home where his smaller form would rest – only to find that the thing she loved was a writhing ball of spider legs and tentacles, with one eye that glared at her…

"No!"

Her exclamation died away in strange echoes, followed by the titter of the Thing. "Not crazy yet," it cooed, "Not crazy yet…"