Episode 10: Exchange; Empowered ;Extracurricular
The drive back to Novomoskovsk was dead silent. It didn't bother Melor, but he knew that it did bother his mother. She was a very chatty person; spending more time talking on the phone than to him the entire weekend. But it didn't matter to him. He knew the only reason she insisted on seeing him every other weekend was for appearance's sake. But there were weekends like this one where she had her shining moments he thought as he ran his finger around the corner of the new laptop balanced on his knees.
They pulled in to the parking lot of the coffee shop where his parents normally exchanged him. His father was already there, leaning against his car and rubbing his hands together to shake off some of the cool Russian air.
As the two of them got out of the car, he gave a nod to the woman. "Olesia."
She gave him a bright, fake smile. "Good to see you again, Kirill. Feels like it's been forever."
"It's been two days."
"Oh, has it. I don't know where my sense of time has gone." She stooped down to give her son a hug. "I must have lost it while having so much fun with my little boy this weekend!"
Melor was staring intently at his father's left shoulder. While his face was the same expressionless one he normally wore, on the inside he was begging his father to get him out of here.
His father, probably realizing this, tried to wrap up their meeting. "Well, it's good to know the two of you had fun. Same time in two weeks?"
She stood back up, her false smile still extending from ear to ear. "Sure. I'll see you boys then." She gave a cheery-looking wave as she got back into her car and drove off, leaving the two of them still standing in the parking lot.
Kirill sighed. "I guess we should get going, too. We don't want to be out here when it gets too dark." The two of them slid into their old car and drove off.
It didn't very long for their small house to come into view. His father could have easily just asked his mother to crop him off here instead of at the coffee shop, especially considering how far they'd come already, but he didn't want her to see the state of this place. But Melor didn't mind how it looked. It had food and electricity, which was all he needed.
When they got inside, Melor headed to his room.
"I'll heat you up something to eat."
Melor nodded without looking at him.
He collapsed on his bed. No matter how many times he did it, he was still tired. He had just gone from St. Petersburg to Moscow by plane, followed by his mother's poor driving for three hours after that. A normal kid his age would have gone insane.
"Good to have ya back." Melor looked up to see Misceomon on his computer screen. "Eet's pretty dull here when you're not around."
Melor slugged out of bed and plopped himself down on his computer chair.
"Still feeling a bit jet-laggy?"
Melor began typing. "I'm just tired. I don't think I flew far enough to experience jet lag."
"You don't need to talk to me eef you're tired."
"It's fine. It's my brain that's tired. I just need to do something to wake it up."
"Well..." Misceomon was eying the laptop with curiosity. "You could tell me a bit about that fancy new computer of yours."
"It's better than this one."
"I love eet already."
Melor hooked the laptop up to his PC and started copying files and links onto it, while Misceomon kept reorganizing his desktop, changing each icon into a circle and arranging them all into a perfect figure-eight. Melor stopped half-way through to eat with his father before he decided to go to bed, and Melor returned to his work.
"I jyust remembered somtheeng." Misceomon had apparently finished moving everything to the pixel perfect point. "Kurohi sent you a message yesterday."
"About what?"
"Don't know. He said eet was important, but not urgent. Knoweeng heem, he's still online right now."
"I don't think he sleeps at all."
Melor checked his messenger, and he was indeed still online. He sent him a video chat offer, which he responded to after a half a minute.
Kurohi appeared on his monitor, not that he looked at him. Other than the phrase "Yo Comrade", Melor could not understand his Japanese. Luckily, it was all being translated by one of his programs.
"Yo, comrade. Haven't seen you on. Busy weekend?"
"I was visiting my mother in St. Petersburg."
"Sounds like fun."
"It wasn't." Just remembering how boring it was sent shivers down his spine. "You had something to discuss with me?"
"Yea..." Melor could hear the hesitancy in his voice. "I want to offer you a job."
"A job?"
"Yea...with Digicorp."
"S-shtwa!?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Kurohi looked shocked. This wasn't that surprising considering he'd never heard him speak before, but current situations forced the issue aside.
Melor frantically began typing. "What do you mean a job at Digicorp.?"
"Well, it's not a job so much as an internship." Kurohi proceeded to explain what had happened to him over the weekend, and that he was asked to form the team. "So, whadoya say? Interested?"
Melor had always assumed that there was something slightly off about Kurohi, but he could have never guessed that he was actually insane. "You realize they will delete our Digimon once we've fulfilled our usefulness."
"Wow. Never pegged you for a conspiracy theorist." Kurohi paused, again, before continuing. "Look, you don't have to join. Just because I've decided to work with them doesn't mean you have to, too. Just think it over, ok?"
"...Fine. I will think it over."
"That's all I ask. I've got some stuff to work on, so I'll talk to you later. G'night. Glad to have you back online." And with that, their chat was over.
"So, what do you theenk, Melor? Thees whole DIGIrus thing?"
"I honestly don't know."
Potpourri wore a particularly nasty scowl as she waited for the bus to pick her up from school. The other students were keeping their distance.
A voice emanated from her pocket. "Mistress?"
Pop pulled her DP out of her pocket so she could see the tiny musician who had interrupted her thoughts. "Whad is it, Sopranomon?"
"Mistress, you seem to be in a foul mood. Are you upset about what Master Kurohi said yesterday?"
"I'm not mad're anythin', I'm jusd thinkin' is all."
"May I inquire as to what, Mistress?"
"Well..." Pop was confused. Not by Sopranomon's question, but by everything that Kurohi had said yesterday. "I jus'don't get whad's goin' on. DIGIrus? The company? Formin' a team? Id's a lot to process, y'know? And I didn't even get half the techno-babble he was spoutin'. Wha'd'he hell is a micro-black hole, anyways!?" This last outburst caused the surrounding middle-schoolers to take a visible step backwards away from her.
As the bus pulled up and they all poured on, every set of seats directly next to her were left vacant. This was odd considering that people normally didn't start doubling up until every seat had at least one person in it, but Pop was to engrossed in her own mind to notice any of this.
"Wha'd'o you think I shoul'd'o, Sopranomon?"
"I do not know, Mistress, but no matter what you decide I will follow your will." He gave a small bow.
The people that got off before her all shot her fearful looks. One girl in particular actually said that she hoped she'd feel better, which finally made Pop realize she was freaking everyone else on the bus out, and forced her to soften her expression.
It normally took around 25 minutes for the bus to get from the school to Pop's stop, and another three minutes of walking to get from there to her apartment.
"I'm home!" The door clattered noisily closed behind her.
"Ah." An apron clad young man stepped out of their tiny kitchen to see her. "Welcome home, Potpourri. I've almost finished making lunch." Her brother gave her a broad smile.
Pop dropped her backpack on the coffee table and fell onto the couch. "Okaaaaay." She wasn't that hungry, but she hoped that food would get Kurohi off her mind.
Her brother came out of the kitchen carrying a plate with a decked out sandwich and some chips on it. He set it down next to her bag. "Are you okay, Potpourri? You look upset."
Pop covered her face with a throw pillow. "I'm fine. I think."
"You wanna talk about it?"
Pop sat up right. "Whad's with him!? First he kicks my butt at Digimon, dhen he geds all friendly widh me, has me help him fight some freaky monsder, and now he's offering me a job and immunidy for Sopranomon! I don' ged him!"
"Um..." He looked somewhat confused. "Who are you talking about?"
Pop flopped back onto the couch. "A friend of mine. We met online."
"You met him online?" He seemed concerned. "And he's offering you a job? How old is he?"
"Id's not really a job. According to him id's more like a pard-time internship. Apparently id looks good on a resume or some bull like dhat. And I don' know how old he is. I think he's in college or somethin'."
"College?" He looked very concerned now. "Potpourri, you should be careful who you talk to online. This man might be some sort of pervert or something."
Pop though the throw pillow at his head. She did not look amused. "Did you jusd call me friend a pervert?"
"What? N-no. I would never-"
"Because he's not. He's a good guy, and he's jusd lookin' for some help is all." Pop laid back on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. "...jusd lookin' for help...Hey, bro?"
"Y-yes, Potpourri?"
"What's a micro-black hole?"
"Oy, Ricker! Get your head in the game!"
"Wha-?" Ricker snapped back into the game just in time to see the opposing defense kick the ball up to their teammates in midfield. Ricker turned on the spot and ran to intercept them, knocking the ball away with a sliding tackle. One of his team got the ball and dribbled it back toward the enemy goal. Even thou he felt a little banged up, Ricker got back on his feet and charged after the ball.
Yes. He had no trouble getting back on his feet after getting into a scrape, but he wasn't worried about himself. He wasn't going to be the one who was fighting. According to Kurohi, these things, the DIGIrus, ate Digimon. Even if Rollermon was one of the few Digimon who could do anything, they weren't strong enough to do anything last time. What was going to stop the same thing from happening again.
His teammate kicked the ball, but it was intercepted by an opposing player's forehead. The ball flew in Ricker's direction.
The only reason everyone was still in one piece was because that bug thing left them alone. There was no guarantee that the same thing was going to happen again, or that they would be so lucky.
Ricker caught the ball on his chest.
But this was Kurohi he was talking about. He wasn't stupid, and he wouldn't agree to something so reckless without a plan.
He swerved through the defense, narrowing in on the stocky goalie guarding his ball's destination.
You do have a plan, don't you Kurohi?
Ricker kicked the ball with everything he had.
Deleting a Digimon is equivalent to killing a human.
"Goal!" The crowd cheered. Ricker looked up at the score board. With three seconds left on the clock, they had managed to pull ahead 4-3. Many of Ricker's team gave him pats on the shoulder or slaps on the back. They had won.
He trusted Kurohi. He trusted Kurohi had the Digimon's best interests at heart, and that he wouldn't send them in without some form of insurance to make sure they got out of it alright.
As everyone was cheering around him and hugging one another, Ricker pulled his DP out of his bag. "Roller. What do you say? You itching for a fight?"
Rollermon mimed a few quick jabs while beeping happily.
"Alright then." Ricker's thumb blazed across the screen for a few seconds, and the txt was sent.
We're in
Kurohi looked down at Ricker's txt. "That's two of them."
"I do not believe Melor will join us so easily. He is not worried about the DIGIrus, but the company. To him, they are a more dangerous enemy, as they can erase Misceomon without them being able to fight back."
"Yea, I understand that. Whether he decides to help or not may greatly shape how well this fight goes." Kurohi was at his desk. He hadn't slept for two nights, or at least not for very long. Erika had easily convinced Shibumi to give him a copy of the program, and he had been modifying it all this time. They did not know when their enemy would strike next, so that had to be ready as soon as possible.
"Kurohi, may I ask you something?"
"You'll ask anyways."
"Why didn't you tell them about the Superior Program and Legionmon? I know you mentioned it to the girl, but if you had told them about the program, they may have been more interested in joining."
"I know." Kurohi knew very well that it could be used as a very alluring incentive. "But it would be wrong of me to use it as a bargaining chip. It should be a gift for having trusted me."
"And Legionmon?"
"It's one and the same at this point, isn't it?" Along with the program, Erika had also sent a report on the events of their fight with Legionmon. She had made sure to highlight a particular point for them: the stolen data. The exact program they had asked for that very same day. "Whoever's pulling that spider's strings is probably trying to do the same thing we are, or at least something similar. Telling them about it would give away what we're working on."
"To be honest, I don't think anyone but Melor would understand. The girl seemed rather confused when you mentioned you were working on a digital micro-black hole."
"Yeeeaaa. Probably could've explained that to Pop better."
There was a ping from his computer.
"Seems like you've got an e-mail."
"I know what that sound means, Sherlock." He pulled up his e-mail and began reading th message from Erika.
"I've read that book now."
"Thoughts?"
"It's a good read."
"You chuckle at all the ejaculations?"
Linkmon scowled. "I am a knight. I do not find such profanities humorous."
"Yea, yea." Kurohi finished reading. "Looks like we've got our perp." Kurohi opened the picture file attached to the e-mail, revealing the face of an old man with grey hair. "A mister Sigmund Black. Apparently he owns a large computer company in Great Britain. According to Erika, they confronted him about the break in, but he denied any involvement in it. Even let them search the company's systems."
"Hmm. Doesn't seem like the gaming type."
"And we have our first mission." He stared into Mr. Black's eyes, as if challenging him to a battle. "Erika thinks that if it it's not in his company's system, then it's probably on either a personal computer or a computer separate from the system. Our mission is merely to search his personal computers and determine if the information is stored there or not. We go in, poke around, and get out. Sounds easy enough."
Linkmon smirked. "Breaking and entering a most likely high-security computer system? Sounds like a walk in the park."