Chapter 5 - "Seven days."
As everyone was leaving Tai and Kari's apartment, they were in generally high sprits. Even though the trip to the Digital World hadn't gone quite to plan, they had still survived being trapped in a cave, for who knows how long, and some of them had regained the ability to allow their Digimon to go ultimate. They walked as a group until they reached the bus stop where Ken had to get his bus. They waited as a group for the bus with Ken. When the bus arrived, late as usual, he said goodbye to everyone, kissed Yolei goodnight and left. It was at this point when the group split in two. Sora, Mimi, Joe and Izzy went in one direction, and Matt, T.K, Cody, Yolei, Davis and Erin went in the other direction. They all said good night to each other and left to go their separate ways. On their way back, the larger groups conversation was varied, but ended up on cheesy old horror movies again, and it turned out that Erin was something of an expert on the subject.
"You would get on really well with Kari. She loves movies like that as well." T.K said to Erin.
"Really," Erin said, "Well maybe we should get together some time and dig out our favourite scary movies"
"Cool, make it a party and we'll all come." Davis said adding to the conversation. The conversation carried on like this until they reached T.K's apartment block. Davis and Erin said goodnight to everyone as they made their way into their block leaving Erin and Davis alone. They walked a little way in silence until Davis stopped, Erin didn't immediately notice this and carried on walking until she saw that Davis was no longer with her, she turned round and walked back with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Davis what's up?" She asked.
"Nothing really, it's just," he paused while thinking what to say, "When we were in that cave, you really helped. If you weren't there I really don't know what I would have done. Thank you so much." He said finally.
"It's nothing you know, I would have done it for any of you, and I'm sure that you have done it for me," she said, "Thanks for not strangling me to death when we got that wall down by the way." She added with a grin. Davis then became very sheepish.
"Oh yeah, sorry about that. I don't know what came over me, I guess that I was just happy to see you alive after all you had done for me in the cave." He said.
"It's okay, I probably would have done the same thing. I hugged Tai after all"
"You hugged Tai," Davis said surprised, "Poor you." They both burst out laughing and walked the rest of the way back to their apartments.
Day One - Thursday.
"Metal gear!?!" Exclaimed the TV in Tai's front room. Several members of the group had turned up early at Tai's for the meeting later on in the day. Davis and Erin were playing a video game, and T.K and Kari were sitting next to them on the couch watching. Tai and Sora, meanwhile, were in the kitchen getting some drinks. The reason everyone was inside was because the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was now raining, however the weather report said that it would clear up by the afternoon and go back to being summer. As the morning went on more people turned up. Matt and Mimi were the next to arrive and joined Tai and Sora in the kitchen, who then all moved into the lounge where everyone else was. They all soon started shouting direction at Davis who was playing the game, this confused him a little and he died so he gave to controller to Erin. Everyone continued to shout directions, until Yolei, Ken and Cody arrived. Matt answered the door to let them in. They joined the others in the lounge and started shouting directions as well, it seemed that everyone was an expert at the game. The last to arrive were Joe and Izzy, who joined the others at shouting directions at T.K, who was now playing the game. Everyone was so interested in the game that nobody noticed that the whole group had now arrived. This is until Patamon flew in front of the TV causing T.K to die rather excruciatingly.
"Didn't you guys want to talk about something," he said to the group, "'cause if you didn't, can we get something to eat. I'm hungry"
"What, oh yeah." Tai said, finally realising that everyone was present. He turned off the TV and the game console and turned to face the group.
"Okay, now that we're all here, we can discuss what we're going to do about the invasion of the Digital World." He told them.
"We don't actually know that it's an invasion yet." Joe offered.
"That's true, but for the time being we have to treat it as an invasion, as that's the most likely cause of what's been happening." Tai told him.
"Okay, so now we're assuming that, what do we do?" Davis asked.
"For the moment wait." Tai answered.
"Gennai said that we can't really do anything until we know for sure what's going on." Matt added.
"I can keep in contact with the Digimon in the Digital World and report anything they find." Said Izzy.
"That's a good idea, you can tell us if they see or hear anything that might help us." Mimi said to Izzy.
"Okay, and you guys," Tai said turning to the younger digi-destined, "You have to be ready to go into the Digital World at a moments notice, if the Digimon find anything they need help with, you'll be that help"
"That's cool, so long as we don't have to wake up at midnight or anything stupid like that." Davis said. Yolei scowled at him.
"What, I'm not a morning person," Davis said to Yolei, noticing her expression. "Is anyone?" He asked the group. There was a subdued shaking of heads coming from everyone except Kari and Sora much to the displeasure of T.K and Tai.
"Guys we're getting off topic," Tai said, getting back to the subject at hand, "We have to remain on our guard, all of us, until we know what's going on in the Digital World. I also think that it would be a good idea if you seven stay together as much as possible, in case you do have to go into the Digital World quickly." He suggested to the younger digi-destined. T.K and Kari looked a little annoyed at this suggestion but agreed to it none the less.
"Okay, so now that's decided what do we actually know about the attackers?" Ken said, "If that's what they are." He added, looking in Joe's direction.
"Not a lot. We know they control the digi ports for a start." Tai said.
"How do we know that?" Mimi asked.
"Because we came out of the wrong one yesterday." Cody answered, Mimi nodded suddenly remembering.
"We also know that they can control the weather in the Digital World. That tornado." He said, reading the puzzled expressions coming off several members of the group. "I know that Gennai said that it may have been a by product, maybe the clouds were they didn't disappear, but that tornado was manufactured, I'm sure of it. It practically forced us into that cave"
"And then the entrance collapsed." Kari said, understanding her brother's line of reasoning.
"What else do we know?" Davis asked.
"That's about it for now, we will find out more as and when the Digimon find anything. Izzy can notify us the minuet he finds anything put by D-Terminal, but in the mean time we just have to stay alert and keep our guard up," Tai said finishing the meeting, "Now it's my turn." He added turning the TV and games console on again. Everyone gathered round the TV in their previous positions and resumed shouting directions and instructions. They had all completely failed to notice that it had stopped raining outside and the sun was now shining again.
Day Two - Friday.
In the Digital World, Agumon was walking through one of the many forests that were spotted round File Island. The digi-destined had decided not to digivolve their Digimon, like they did when they were protecting the Digital World from the Digimon Emperor, mainly because they didn't know what they were looking for and they didn't know if fighting would be necessary. Agumon had been walking for some time when he suddenly had the feeling that he was being followed. He stopped, and looked behind him and saw nothing but trees. He continued walking; however he couldn't shake the feeling that someone or something was following him. He walked for a further ten minuets before coming to a clearing in the trees. He sat down on a rock near the centre of the clearing and looked upwards at the sky. The sky was covered with angry grey and green clouds that looked as of they could have spat out another tornado on the spot.
"I miss the sun." Agumon thought to himself, as he watched the clouds change formation as the wind blew them. He amused himself for quite some time by trying to make recognisable shapes out of the cloud formations, as he and Tai had once done. "That one looks a bit like Patamon." He thought, as he chuckled quietly to himself. Suddenly something happened that snapped him out of his daydreaming. He heard something snap in the woods behind him as if someone has stood on a small branch on the forest floor. He stood up quickly and looked round at once, but he saw nothing except the forest. He returned to face the way he was to start with, but then looked behind himself again quickly. There was something different. A tree had appeared in the centre of the path he had walked down. He walked towards the tree whilst thinking to himself, "That's strange, I don't remember that tree being there before." As he examined the tree he found it to be no different that any of the other trees that made up the forest. He resigned to the fact that his imagination was playing tricks on him and turned back to continue through the forest. Before he re-entered the forest at the other side of the clearing, though, he looked back at the tree again and found it had disappeared. "That's really strange." He thought, panicking a little. "I had better tell Tai and the others, they wanted to know about anything strange that happened." He thought, and with that changed direction and began walking to the nearest digi port to contact Izzy. As he walked, the feeling that he was being followed had returned, and he quickened his pace to the port.
"And then it was gone." Agumon told Izzy through the open digi port. He was sat on the ground in front of the small television that served as an entry and exit point to the Digital World. He seemed a little more relaxed now he was talking to Izzy.
"So you mean the tree just disappeared?" Izzy asked Agumon from the other side of the port, or inside the TV from Agumon's point of view.
"Yeah, I didn't think I could remember the tree being there in the first place, but when I examined it, it was normal like any other tree. But then when I looked back at it as I was leaving it vanished and the feeling that I was being followed came back." Agumon answered, and then asked, "What do you think it could be"
"I'm not sure, but you did the right thing telling us. We can try and find out what it was, and if it has anything to do what what's attacking the Digital World now." Izzy told Agumon.
"Thanks Izzy, I know you will do all that you can to get the Digital World back to normal again." Agumon said.
"That's okay Agumon, and if you see anything like this again tell us straight away, okay." Izzy said to Agumon.
"I will, speak to you soon." Agumon said as the digi port closed and Izzy vanished from the screen. Back in the real world, Izzy reached for his D-Terminal and started to relay the message from Agumon back to the other digi-destined.
Day Three - Saturday.
The day was once again sunny and hot after Thursday's rainstorm, and the amount of people out and about was large even for a Saturday afternoon. Erin walked back to her apartment from the beach where she had spent most of the day with Yolei and Mimi. As she walked she was thinking about everything that had happened to her in the last week. She had found out that she was a member of the digi-destined, but this hadn't come as too much of a shock to her. She had made eleven new friends and one new very good friend, Davis. She had travelled to a completely different world, perhaps a different universe, and had met maybe the best of her new friends Terriormon. While in this new world, she had been chased by a tornado into a cave and trapped inside for the best part of a day. She had now found out that trees were suddenly appearing and disappearing at random in the Digital World. It was as she was thinking about the strange behaviour of the trees that her pager went off for the first time in three days. She removed it from her pocket and looked at the message apprehensively. It said simply,
4-5-2, meet in the park. Johns.
It was the same message that she had received the last several time her pager went off. She changed direction, and headed towards the park. All the thoughts of her new friends, and even the disappearing trees, had been replaced by feelings of increased anger. When she arrived in the park, she looked around briefly for any sign of Johns, after a minuet of searching she found a man dressed in a black suit sitting on a bench under a large tree. She walked over to him and leaned over the back of the bench to talk to him.
"What do you want now?" She asked quietly, but there were still great amounts of anger in her voice.
"I have come for you progress report." Johns replied calmly.
"What report, I told you the last three times you called me out I don't work for you anymore"
"MI6 is pleased with your work so far." He told her, disregarding her last statement.
"That's good to know, but it's quite irrelevant seeing as I no longer work for MI6." Johns turned to face Erin, he was a young man and looked to Erin to be about twenty, she never got to find out his real age.
"You may like to think that you no longer work for us," he said with a grin, "But we have been following your every movement in and out of the Digital World. You have no choice but to work for us." He said, turning to face the other way again. Erin looked a little shocked at hearing this, but then she grinned herself.
"Is that so, well now I know that I can put some of my training to good use." She said this putting influence on the word good. "Are you forgetting that you yourself trained us to recognise and avoid all types of tracking." Johns made no movement, although he was obviously deep in thought.
"Very well, if you really want to stop working for us then so be it. Maybe we can make a deal." He said turning to face Erin again.
"Go on." She said.
"Okay, you want to be left alone. You want us to stop following you, then you leave us alone as well. You let us continue doing what we're doing in the Digital World and don't try to stop us." Erin was silent for a moment, before she said calmly,
"That's your deal. Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone. I'm afraid I can't do that, at least until you have completely withdrawn from the Digital World. In the time I have spent with these digi-destined I have heard what they have done to keep the Digital World safe, and if you think I am going to let you destroy everything they have worked to accomplish, you are gravely mistaken." There was silence between the two for several seconds during which time, Erin had stood up from leaning on the back of Johns' bench.
"If that is the way you want it to be, but you should be warned you can now consider yourself to be an enemy of MI6 and will be treated as such." Johns said now matching Erin's anger.
"No you should be warned, we will not stop until you have been remover from the Digital World completely and made sure you cannot return." And with that she turned and headed out of the park without a backwards look at Johns. Little did she know that Davis had witnessed most of the meeting between herself and the man in the black suit.
Day Four - Sunday.
Sunday. Like Saturday, was a quiet day in terms of action from the Digital World. Nothing more had been heard of anything unusual since Agumon's report about the disappearing tree. The only bit of news was that the sky had still not cleared of clouds, although the other Digimon had also said that they too had felt like something was following them everywhere. The digi-destined were getting nervous now, as nothing had been found that could help them identify the intruders into the Digital World. The Digimon were also becoming worried about what was happening to their home. All this was to change though, late Sunday afternoon the digi-destined all got a message saying they should meet at Izzy's apartment as he had some more news. It was half an hour after they received the message that the group was assembled at Izzy's place.
"Thank you all for coming at such short notice," Izzy said to the group, once they had all congregated in his large bedroom. "A short while ago I received a message from Gomamon. It appears that a number of usually benign Digimon were acting very strangely." He told the group.
"Strange like how?" Davis asked.
"Acting violent towards other Digimon, and generally behaving out of character for those Digimon." Izzy answered.
"Could it have been a dark ring or something?" Matt asked.
"Gabumon didn't say anything about seeing a dark ring or spiral on any of the odd Digimon." Izzy answered.
"How about the control spires?" Mimi asked.
"No, those were all destroyed, there's no way it could have been one of those." Ken answered instead of Izzy.
"Have any of the other Digimon reported seeing any strangely behaving Digimon?" Tai asked.
"No, the only other report of anything out of the ordinary was from Agumon on Friday about the tree." Izzy said. With all the questions exhausted, the digi-destined sat in silence for a moment.
"The plot thickens." Matt said, breaking the silence.
"Indeed it does," Izzy said, "I have told all of the other Digimon to keep a look out for any Digimon behaving in a strange way and to tell us immediately if they do." He added.
"But until we hear anything else, we will have to keep doing what we're doing. Wait." Tai said.
"I don't like all this waiting, it makes me nervous." Gatomon said.
"None of us do, but that's the only thing we can do for the moment." Kari said, trying to reassure her Digimon friend.
Throughout the meeting, Davis had looked very distracted, and apart from his question at the start had said nothing. This was most unlike Davis, and Yolei had picked up on it.
"Hey Davis, you okay? You're a little more quiet than usual." She asked Davis.
"Huh? What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine," he said, as if someone had just woken him up. "I've just got something on my mind." He added.
"Well you need to keep a clear head Davis, if we need you to go into the Digital World we can't have you being distracted by anything." Tai told him.
"Your right, I think I'm just tired." Davis replied, "I going to go home now." He said standing up and picking up Demiveemon. He said good-bye to everyone and left.
"That was weird, I wonder what's bugging Davis?" Cody asked.
"Maybe he's just tired." T.K said, then shrugged when everyone turned a looked at him. With that everyone else started leaving as well, mulling over the new piece to the puzzle in their heads.
Day Five - Monday.
Monday wasn't anywhere near as quiet as the previous two days had been. Almost as soon as everyone had woken up, they had received a message on their D-Terminals telling them to go to Tai's house immediately. It took slightly longer for everyone to assemble than it did yesterday, as everyone was still half asleep. It became evident to Kari and Sora, the only two real morning people, that almost the whole group really weren't morning people at all. Most of the group were very subdued or in very bad moods. It was strange for Kari to see T.K like this. She was used to seeing him full of energy and seeing him so subdued was quite unusual. While they were waiting for everyone to arrive, Kari had pulled T.K into her bedroom, leaving the other members of the group in the lounge.
"There they go again." Tai said drinking a very large cup of coffee.
"Leave them alone." Mimi said, stifling a yawn and pouring herself a refill from the coffee pot on the lounge table.
"I wonder what was so urgent?" Sora asked, not sounding nearly as tired as the other members of the group in the room, in fact Erin had curled up on one of the arm-chairs and had gone back to sleep
"I don't know, but it better be worth it getting us out at this time in the morning." Matt said. He was one of the bad tempered morning people.
"You had better refill the coffee pot." Yolei said, emptying the last of the coffee into her cup. She was also one of the bad tempered morning people, but she was hiding it this morning by concentrating on the caffeine. As Tai went into the kitchen to refill the coffee pot, the doorbell rang. He answered it on the way to the kitchen and found Izzy on the other side of the door.
"You don't have time for that, we have to get into the Digital World immediately." Izzy said as he made his way into the lounge.
"Morning to you, to." Tai said to himself as he closed the door and made his way to the kitchen. On his way back from the kitchen he found Izzy had already set up his laptop.
"So what's the big rush?" Matt asked, "And where is the rest of the coffee?" He added.
"On it's way." Tai answered first. Izzy, meanwhile, was feverishly typing away at his laptop keyboard.
"It's urgent, very urgent. Where are Davis, Kari and T.K?" He asked taking his first look around the room.
"Kari and T.K are, umm, busy at the moment, and Davis hasn't turned up yet." Sora answered.
"Trust Davis to be late." Izzy said, it seamed to Sora that Izzy also fell under the category of bad tempered morning person, however she put this morning down to the urgency of what ever was happening. Davis finally turned up five minuets later, after the second coffee pot had been emptied. T.K and Kari had also emerged, this time Kari was rearranging T.K's hat on his head, and T.K looked a lot more awake. The rest of the group looked at the pair for a second before turning back to Izzy, who was finishing his second cup of coffee.
"Okay, so now we're all here, what the urgent urgency?" Tai asked.
"I received a message from Tentomon late last night, he was being attacked by a group of Koromon." Izzy told the group
"Koromon? But their In-Training Digimon, why would they attack Tentomon?" Joe asked.
"I'm not sure, but it's like what Gomamon was saying yesterday. Anyway, Tentomon said he had the situation under control, but I think we should go just in case." Izzy said.
"Okay, I say this qualifies as an emergency. We go into the Digital World, where was Tentomon?" Tai asked.
"I already have the port dialled up." Izzy said.
"Okay into my room, in case anyone come home while we're away." Tai said leading everyone into his room.
"Tai, get your foot off my head!" Sora shouted as the group untangled themselves from the heap they had arrived in. They had come out of the wrong port again.
"How far out are we this time?" Tai asked Izzy.
"About half a mile. In this direction." Izzy answered, leading the group off in the direction he had indicated. After half an hour they came across Tentomon. Izzy ran straight up to him.
"Tentomon, are you alright?" He asked the Digimon.
"I'm fine, the Koromon weren't a problem, that's if they were Koromon." Tentomon said.
"What do you mean?" Cody asked.
"Well when I attacked them back, they just vanished. Like the control spire Digimon did when they were defeated"
"Well they can't be real Digimon then." Matt reasoned, he was a little more agreeable now he had had coffee.
"That would be the most logical assumption." Izzy said.
"So what do we do now?" Joe asked.
"Well it looks like there's nothing more here we can do, and if there are any more attacks, it doesn't look like we will be needed if they all go down that easy." Tai said, "I suggest we go back and try to find out what these things are, I'm quite sure they are related to Agumon's tree in some way." He continued. The rest of the group agreed and with one final check to see if Tentomon was okay, they returned back to the port and the real world.
Day Six - Tuesday.
Tuesday was quiet once again. This gave the digi-destined time to try and figure out what it was that had attacked Tentomon, what Gomamon had seen and if the tree Agumon saw was one of them. Most of the group spent the day at Izzy's looking through books and searching the Internet for clues as to what they might have been. Everyone was in a generally better mood that yesterday, mainly for the reason they had all got to wake up properly before starting digi-destined work. The group worked the computer in pares, one person would find the information on the Internet, the other would write down the important information. Izzy and Tai were first; they stayed there until lunchtime when Yolei and Ken took over. During this time the others looked through many books on different types of computer program, anything that might give them some idea as to what was attacking the Digital World. They group had come to the conclusion that it was definitely an invasion of the Digital World or a take over attempt. About mid afternoon Erin took the computer with Mimi as her partner.
"This is what Newbie found so far." Erin told Mimi, indicating a page of writing, "him and Yolei were looking up different types of virus program, and I think he may be on to something." She said, and then started typing away at the keyboard. They remained there for the rest of the day.
It was about the time that Erin took the computer that Davis and T.K disappeared from the group. They had told the others they were going out for pizza and left the apartment.
"So what did you want to talk to me about?" T.K asked Davis.
"It's about Erin. I'm not entirely sure she is who she says she is." He replied.
"What's with all the James Bond all of a sudden?" T.K asked a little sarcastically.
"There are lots of things, for a start what has she actually told us about her self, her past." Davis said. T.K looked interested but said nothing.
"Also she keeps getting called away by her pager, what that all about?" He asked rhetorically.
"Then she was really eager to get into the Digital World last week."
"But she had an excuse for that, she wanted to find Terriormon." T.K said
"True, but it was the way she suggested going tomorrow so suddenly, and then covering by saying she wanted to look for Terriormon." Davis said. "And then the day before yesterday I stumbled across her in the park talking to some guy in a black suit." He continued.
"So what, it was probably her dad." T.K reasoned.
"Oh no, this was no family conversation, they were both very angry, so I stayed to listen to the conversation." Davis said.
"What were they saying?" T.K asked.
"I'm not too sure, they were speaking in English, but from what I could understand they were definitely talking about the Digital World. I heard them mention something called MI6 and they were doing something in the Digital World." Davis answered.
"What are you trying to say?" T.K asked.
"I think Erin might be one of the people trying to take over the Digital World, and if she isn't she knows more than she is letting on." T.K was stunned by this turn of events, and after several seconds of silence he spoke.
"Do you think we should tell the others?" He asked.
"Not yet, I'm going to try and find out some more, like what MI6 is and what Erin's doing talking to someone from there before I say anything to the others." Davis answered.
"Okay, that seems fair enough. I won't tell anyone either. I will, however, keep an eye on Erin and if she does anything out of the ordinary we should confront her." T.K suggested.
"Agreed," Davis said. "Come on we better hurry up, the others will be wondering where we got to." He added as they returned with the pizza.
Day Seven - Wednesday.
Wednesday was like most of the previous week, quiet. There was a report, this time from Gabumon, of Digimon behaving badly, but this was nothing for them to get too alarmed over. The digi-destined once again started work on trying to find out what was attacking. They had made some progress in finding some types of virus program that had some of properties of the strange Digimon, but nothing conclusive. They started the day early, again at Izzy house, with a discussion about what they had found so far, over several large ports of coffee.
"Here is something I found when I got home last night," Erin was saying. "I remember reading somewhere once about a type of Trojan Horse virus, called a sentinel program, that can disguise it's self as any piece of data in it's near vicinity. A bit like a digital stem cell." When she said this she lost most of the group.
"A digital what?" Sora asked.
"Stem cell. It's a cell in the body that can transform itself to become any other type of cell it's near to. They are mostly found in foetuses and it's believed that stem cell research can make great advances in the treatment of diseases like leukaemia." Joe explained.
"Thank god there's a doctor in the house." Matt said.
"Anyway, these viruses are programmed to collect data from the computer that has been infected by it, but they can be reprogrammed for more destructive purposes. They are virtually undetectable as they can make them selves' look like anything else. They are sent in, in large numbers and are programmed to self-destruct if they are found, as there will be several others to take its place. I believe that what Agumon saw was one of the benign ones, and the Koromon and the other ones that attacked are the more virulent." She finished and looked around the group, everybody was staring at her; she had their undivided attention. Izzy was the next to speak,
"That's an interesting theory, it would certainly explain everything." He said.
"What did you call them again?" Ken asked.
"Sentinel programs, primarily designed for data gathering and research." Erin answered. Izzy already had his head in a book.
"She's right," he said, emerging from 'The Big Book of Virus Programs'. "It says here that sentinels are used mainly by governments to keep track of convicted criminals and are used in bank computer security systems. It also says that not all governments could afford the research for such programs and are very rare." He added closing the book.
"So who could afford the research for programs like this?" T.K asked.
"Well America without a doubt, the UK maybe. Russia if they collaborated with another country, Japan. Any of the rich countries." Ken answered.
"So we're fighting a government, that sure does complicate things." Cody said.
"Okay so now we know what we're fighting, we need to know who we're fighting. We need to get on the Internet find out which countries can afford this type of research, and which ones already have the programs running." Izzy said, and with that the group set to work.
When T.K and Davis heard Erin's explanation of the sentinels, they looked at each other surreptitiously, each knowing what this meant. And when Ken said the UK government could afford research for this kind of thing, it made the decision for them. T.K went over to Davis while the others were crowded round Izzy's computer.
"I found out what MI6 is." T.K said.
"What is it?" Davis asked.
"It's a department of the British government, their foreign secret intelligence agency." T.K answered.
"You mean Erin's a real James bond, cool." Davis said, forgetting about the subject at hand.
"It means you were right, she most likely is working for whoever is attacking." T.K said very seriously.
"When do we confront her?" Davis asked.
"Later." Was all T.K said.
To Be Continued...