"I'm in," Edan said, then stood up from his crouch. It was a freezing Paris night, it was overcast, and there was a hint of rain in the air. Even in his human form, his Digimon-enhanced senses remained. He could also sense trouble near the target wine cellar.

"Okay," Kaida said. "It looks like there's some police activity - right at your target."

"Acknowledged."

Edan tensed his legs, positioned himself, then leaped into the air. Black on black was perfect camouflage, and no one saw the incredible jump. As he sailed past the edge of the roof, he grabbed it with one hand, and swung himself over the edge, landing in a squat.

"Compass, direction." A massive, green compass appeared in the air before him. It was pointing to the left. He turned, and the compass kept righting itself, until he was looking at a spot halfway across Paris.

At least that's away from the Eiffel Tower, he thought. The iconic blaze of light would do him no good. Instead, the target was in the direction of one of the Parisian slums.

He started running, reached the end of the roof, and leaped over to the next. He had a lot of ground to cover.

Kaida watched him leap from rooftop to rooftop via a satellite feed. There was nothing unbecoming in his immediate path, so she shifted the view to the wine cellar.

There was some serious activity in the restaurant across the road. It was most likely a robbery gone bad. She didn't care. What she was concerned about was the activity level around the cellar.

She caught herself. Edan was more than capable. She didn't quite know how he could do what he could do. Her working assumption was that it had something to do with his genetic makeup – and maybe his training. Prior to his really bad encounter at the wrong end of a minigun, not too much was known about him.

Edan landed on the rooftop of the cellar he was meant to infiltrate. Police were buzzing in the streets below. Several ambulances had pulled up, casualities were being loaded, and a few reporters were on the scene.

He would never get in unnoticed like this. He scanned the immediate environment for anything that could help. The road terminated in a T-junction on his right. The building at the junction had an elevated water tower sprouting from the top.

He looked at it – it was supported by a very thin tracery of metal beams. Post-World War II stuff, when they didn't have that many materials to work with.

He unholstered his pistol, and removed the clip. Then he pulled another one from his utility belt. All the bullets had red tips- they were packed with high explosive.

Edan carefully slotted the clip into the base of the gun, and cocked it. Then he looked down. They were finishing up with the ambulances, and the drivers were making their way to their seats.

He looked back at the water tower, did a few quick estimations, and raised his pistol. It would have to be quick.

The wail of the ambulance sirens started up. Edan didn't have to look down to know they were moving – he could tell by the way the sound changed. He waited for three more seconds, then pulled the trigger four times in quick succession.

The supports facing the street were the first to go, as the connections with the tower were blown away by the explosive bullets. Then, they were disconnected from the roof below. Slowly, in an almost dream-like fashion, the water tower dislodged and tumbled to the ground.

It smashed the first ambulance on impact, squelching the wail of its siren instantly. Then the tank exploded, sending thousands of gallons of water cascading down the street. The wave broke windows, bent street lamps, and carried several police cars along.

The panic was instant. Edan lowered his gun, and fired again. The bullet detonated inside a power relay box, and all the lights in the area blew immediately.

Without pause, he hopped off the edge of the roof, holstering his pistol on the way down. He landed with a splash, but in the panicked darkness, no one noticed. There was not enough light to see by, but as a Digimon, Edan could see just fine.

He swung around, searching for the door to the cellar. It was three feet to his left. He tried opening it, but it was locked. A quick foray into his utility belt produced am electronic lockpick.

He slid it in, and the lockpick got to work. Three seconds later, the latch clicked, and the door opened easily. He slipped inside, closed it behind him, and then leaned on it, catching his breath.

Edan hit the "TX" switch on his headset.

"Kaida, I'm in."

"And at the cost of half the local police force, I might add," Kaida said, but she wasn't angry.

"Sucks for them," Edan replied.

Edan whipped out a flashlight, and surveyed the area. It was a tunnel, leading straight on, and terminating in a door. As there was no other option in sight, he walked toward it, all his senses on high alert.

The dark, resonant tunnel was reminiscent of the volcano he had found himself trapped in, but he was able to shun the memory immediately. He had a job to do.

This door opened easily, and he was standing in a wine cellar. Racks of barrels lined the walls of the square room, there was a table in the middle, and not much else. Surprisingly, the cellar was illuminated by a weak, yellowish ceiling-mounted bulb.

"Well, here I am," Edan said, returning his flashlight to its pouch. "Now what?"

"Gennai hid a mainframe in that room. Find it?"

"Kaida, there's nothing here."

"Try searching, Edan."

"Sure," Edan said, at a loss for a better option.

He set about tapping the barrels, trying to hear if one of them, perhaps, contained something other than wine – or empty air. A few minutes later, he hit gold. Or solid material, at least.

Edan grabbed the barrel, and pulled. It was heavy.Straining, he swung the barrel to the table. It landed with a loud thud.

Edan inspected the barrel from all angles. On the rear face of the barrel, the wood had been replaced with a clear layer of ... something else. He touched it, and it lit up.

The barrel started to hum, grumble and hiss, as the top popped off and swung open. Inside was an LCD screen and a keyboard. On the screen were the words "Supply Access Card".

"Kaida, I think I've found it," Edan said, opening the pouch with the card.

"Excellent!"she said, clearly excited. "There should be a clearly visible slot for the card.".

There was. A vertical slot, next to the Enter key. Edan looked at the card from all angles, trying to figure out if there was a particular direction it had to be inserted in. All the surfaces were just as featureless, so he gave up and just stuck the card in.

The machine drew it in like an ATM card. With rising anticipation, Edan watched the screen change.

"Scanning..."

"Verifying..."

"Card invalid. Please supply correct data card."

The card popped back out. Edan didn't know what to think. He removed it, looked at it, then turned it around, inserting it reverse end first.

"Scanning ... Verifying ... Card invalid"

"Kaida, I think I'm doing this wrong," he said, removing the card and looking at it again.

"What do you mean?"

"The machine's rejecting the card. It's asking me for a valid card."

"Impossible – that's the right card, and that's the only mainframe in the area. Try it again!"

Edan shrugged, flipped the card over, and tried again. He got the same result, but this time, there was a warning:

"Card invalid. Please supply correct data card. Two attempts remaining."

"Kaida, it's telling me I only have two tries left."

Kaida sighed, clearly frustrated. "Okay. Let's try and figure this out. Is there anything else on the machine that can help us?"

Edan carefully inspected the machine. Apart from the screen, keyboard and card slot, there was nothing. He relayed this back to Kaida, who was clearly disappointed.

"It makes no sense," she said, dejected. "Gennai doesn't make mistakes like this."

"Maybe he had no choice?" Edan asked.

"What do you mean?"

"When Flame got back from Paris with Gennai, he mentioned something about an 'emergency protocol'".

"So? What would that have to do ... oh, wait. WAIT – you said Paris?!"

"Yeah – the French one."

"Damn, okay. This changes things."

"How so?"

"Emergency protocol. The mainframe's been moved," Kaida said. Edan could hear her computers spinning into action.

"Moved? How can it have moved?"

"The card you're holding contains an activation key for the monitoring software. Since the machine is rejecting the key, it no longer holds that software."

"Okay ... so where did it move to?"

"Knowing Gennai? Somewhere very unexpected."

"Heh."

As she continued to work, Edan looked around the cellar. It was a very interesting place to hide a mainframe. Inside a barrel, in a cellar like this, which probably hadn't been disturbed for decades.

So Gennai would have moved the mainframe to a very different location. A location that one wouldn't expect to have to travel to, in order to activate the mainframe. Somewhere busy, high-profile, lots of people. There were many places like that, though...

"Shit," Kaida said, interrupting his thoughts.

"Did you find it?"

"I did."

"And?"

"Heh. Remember how Gennai used to have that fervent attitude towards unifying Earth and the Digital World?"

"Yeah – with the gates, and new passports, delegations, stuff like that?"

"Same one. So take a wild guess where he moved the mainframe?"

Edan thought about it for a few seconds, and then the penny dropped.

"Holy shit."

"Exactly. Get out of there. You're going to New York."