The five young adults were crowded into Izzy's room at the Izumi residence, all peering anxiously at the computer screen and the slight redhead who sat in front of it. Without taking his eyes from his screen he said, "I've been running some diagnostics of this situation and, with Willis and Ken's considerable input, formulated a strategy."
"So what is it already? Cut the fancy talk and just tell us!"
Well used to comments like that, especially from Davis, Izzy continued as if he hadn't even heard the other boy's words. "As you know, the D-Terminals are linked in a special way that allows them to receive e-mails from each other, and they also appear to be somehow linked to the D-3s. Obviously you can send and receive e-mails from other computers not linking into this special network, but a cursory examination of the Web path showed the messages' routes to be radically different.
"Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I took a look at Kari's D-Terminal. Somehow this 'NecroDragoDaemon,' as he calls himself, sent her a lot of e-mails, but a closer examination showed that they had come from somewhere inside our network, rather than from outside it. Obviously there must be some way to tap into the network that connects your D-Terminals, because when I traced those same messages I came up with a blank." Now he did look at them, his dark eyes serious. "That means that the e-mails didn't come from any one of your addresses. I'd have known if they had—and with the advanced trace program Willis helped me design, I would have also been able to tell if any of you had tried to cover your tracks."
The whole room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.
"Guess I owe you an apology, Davis," Matt muttered, looking the other way.
"That's okay. I know why you reacted that way--I think."
"Anyway," Izzy continued, "I couldn't figure out where those e-mails had come from until Ken informed me that he'd gotten information with an almost identical signature a few years ago, when we were battling VenomMyotismon. After I explained to him what had happened with Kari and T.K., he rushed over here immediately to try to help me figure some of this out. He and Yolei arrived about the same time, actually—"
"Speaking of which, where are they now?" Sora asked curiously
"I'm getting to that," Izzy snapped, slightly irked at being interrupted yet again. "As I was saying, with all three of us working together, it didn't take long for us to hack into the D-Terminal network and send an e-mail to Ken, Kari, and Yolei's D-Terminals. And the signature of the messages we sent were similar to that of the other messages sent to Kari and Ken."
"Great," Tai said, "Wonderful. But where are Ken and Yolei now?"
Izzy smiled smugly. "Finding Joe."
"What!"
Everyone turned to look at Cody, surprised at his sudden outburst.
"What's wrong, Cody?" Sora asked, concerned.
The younger boy looked distraught. "Don't you know that Joe's studying in America this semester? They can't reach him!"
Izzy's smile widened and became a good deal smugger. "Oh, yes, they can."
"How?" Davis had voiced the question, but they all were wondering the same thing.
"I sent them through a Digital Portal."
"What?" Tai gaped. "But—but where did you send them to? Won't they just pop out of some random computer over there?"
"Oh, that was easy." Izzy shrugged. "Since we were looking for Joe . . . I sent them to Mimi."
"Come on, Ken, we haven't got all day!"
Ken Ichijouji heaved a little sigh. He was well aware of the fact that they didn't have much time. He wasn't stupid, after all. What he didn't know was exactly what they should do with the little time they did have.
He and Yolei had gone through the Digiport, met Mimi at a predetermined location in the DigiWorld, then gone on through to America. That had been simple enough, and had taken less than fifteen minutes. The hard part was . . . where could they find Joe? Mimi didn't really seem to know, and neither did Izzy or the rest of the Digidestined kids; his home phone had been busy, and his cell phone was apparently turned off. Izzy had started running a scan on all the possible universities in the New York City area, but it was taking forever . . .
"What do you suggest we do?" Ken asked quietly. "We don't know where we're going."
"We're taking the subway to Central Park!" Yolei sighed as they followed Mimi through the dense crowds. "I've always wanted to see Central Park . . ."
"Yes, that's very nice, but what does that have to do with finding Joe?"
Apparently Mimi heard his question, because she looked over her shoulder at him. "Central Park is a great location to meet people! I sent Joe an e-mail telling him to meet us there at our usual spot—"
"You have a usual spot?" Yolei said, a teasing note in her voice.
"Oh, it's not like that," Mimi said with a little bit of a blush. "Although . . ."
Whatever she'd been about to say was cut off by a blaring horn and the loud clatter of a subway as it passed them.
"This place is so big!" Poromon cooed from his comfortable position in Yolei's arms.
"What are you talking about, you've been on the subways in Tokyo dozens of times!"
"Yes, hidden in a bag most of the time! I can't see a thing!"
"Oh . . ."
"Hey," Ken cut in hastily. "How's this . . . when we get back home, we'll ride the subway there, so Poromon can see it. I'll pay for your ticket . . . you can choose the location if you'd like . . ."
"You mean like a date?" Yolei grinned.
Ken swallowed hard. Well, actually . . .
He was saved from having to answer by Mimi's cheerful, "There's our train! Come on, guys, or we'll miss it!"
Exchanging quick smiles, Ken and Yolei both sprinted for the platform.
"Will someone please explain to me why we need to find Joe anyway?" Davis said, sounding very bored from where he was sprawled out on his back on Izzy's bedroom floor.
He should have known better. Izzy was always ready to explain the complex workings of whatever project he'd whipped up, though he knew most of the group didn't really understand even half of it. Davis himself was lucky if he understood even that much.
"Certainly," Izzy said nonetheless, swiveling his chair around to look at the rest of the Digidestined. "As I hope you know, Joe once possessed the Crest of Reliability. Gomamon, his Digimon, is a Marine-Type Digimon, as are all of his digivolved forms.
"There really isn't very much we can do to help Kari at this point, but if history repeats itself, then it's safe to assume that T.K. has found a way to get to her." He gave them a half-smile. "After all, he managed it last time."
"Well, isn't T.J. special," Davis muttered under his breath, a petulant look coming over his face. "Why don't I ever get to save Kari all on my own?"
"What?"
"Uh!" he gulped, sitting up quickly, "I—said—there's supposed to be a special! On T.V., you know? It's all about the history of yo-yos. I don't know what you thought I said, but it definitely wasn't anything about how T.K. always gets to rescue Kari, and how I think it's totally unfair. Nothing like that."
"Whatever you say, Davis," Cody snorted.
"Yo-yos?" Sora said quietly, looking at Tai skeptically.
"Yeah. I bet he's on there himself--he's definitely crazy enough to be."
"I think it's a family thing," Matt agreed.
"Ahem, in any case," Izzy broke in, "as I said before, there's nothing that we can really do about this right now except to sit tight and hope for the best. However," he stressed the word before anyone could protest what he'd just said, "I have come up with one thing that might prove useful to T.K. and Kari, wherever they are."
"What's that?" Tai asked. He was seated backwards in the room's only other chair, his arms folded over its back.
"The Digi-Egg of Reliability."
"Huh?"
"Wait, I think I get it," Tai broke in. "They're at the Dark Ocean, right?"
"That's right," Matt gasped. "I remember T.K. saying something about an 'Undersea Master' who was supposed to come for Kari!"
"Right," Tai nodded. "So it only makes sense to give them something that will change Gatomon and Patamon into Marine-Type Digimon. That's where Joe and the Crest of Reliability come in."
"Correct," Izzy fairly beamed at them. They really were smarter than they looked sometimes. Which was a good thing in Tai's case. "Now, before they left for New York, I downloaded a special program onto Yolei's D-Terminal--a program that she and Ken both helped me write this very afternoon. This program will collect a code vital to the transfer of the Digi-Eggs, and it will ensure that the transaction is stable and complete.
"Since that Digi-Egg had the crest of Reliability on it, I'm fairly certain that Joe's Digivice has the rest of the information I need to complete a successful transaction between the D-Terminals. Once Yolei collects that code and gets it back here, the rest should be child's play."
"Sure," Davis mumbled. "Maybe if the child is a child prodigy."
"Of course the most important part is the Digi-Egg itself, which is stored on Cody's D-Terminal." Izzy looked over at the younger boy. "Cody, would you be willing to share your Digi-Egg with T.K. and Kari?"
"Sure." He handed his D-Terminal over to Izzy, who met his gaze very seriously.
"Before you agree to this, I have to let you know something very important. I'm certain that I can transfer copies of your Digi-Egg to another D-Terminal; however, I'm not certain what effect this will have on the original."
"Are you saying that something bad could happen to my Digi-Egg?"
"I'm saying that there's a risk involved. I don't think anything will happen--nothing should happen, anyway--but there's always a risk. I just wanted you to be aware of that. I thought you deserved to know." He raised his eyebrows slightly. "Now that you know what's at stake, do you still want to go through with this?"
A/N: Sorry that it's taken me so long to update! Life is crazy recently...and I can't promise that I'll update again any time soon...
But as far as I know, nobody really reads this, so it doesn't matter anyway!