Chapter 6 - "Liars, guns and money."
"Right, according to this there are several countries that can afford to undertake the Sentinel virus research." Izzy said, as he looked up from his computer screen. It turned out that finding information about who had this new technology was proving to be more difficult than finding information about the technology itself.
"What else does it say?" Tai asked, as he rubbed his eyes. Everybody in the room was becoming tired as the group had been searching for information all day.
"Not a lot, it just lists the countries that can afford to do the research." Izzy answered.
"Well at least that's a start," Matt added, "At least now we know what countries to search." He added.
"True, but it's not like I can just hack into the government of each countries mainframe to see if they have done the research. Some of these countries may not even have a mainframe." Izzy said, a little irritated. The group was silent for a moment before Erin spoke.
"Err, allow me." She said, moving towards the computer. Izzy raised his eyebrows at her, but moved from the seat that he was sitting on to allow Erin access to the computer.
"Be my guest." He said, gesturing at the seat.
"Thank you. This may take a while, so I suggest you go and get your selves a coffee or something." She said as she started typing at the computer.
"I don't drink coffee." T.K said, trying to make a joke.
"Well watch the TV or something then." Erin said, paying no attention to T.K's attempt at humour. With this the group started moving towards the lounge room. T.K's joke was actually a bad cover for him not wanting to leave Erin alone, and both him and Davis were hesitant to leave.
"Are you sure you don't need a hand?" Davis asked.
"No, I'm fine." Erin answered, not looking up from the screen. With nothing else they could do, Davis and T.K reluctantly left to join the others.
Half an hour had passed and there was no word from Erin. The group had continued the research in the lounge, and were looking through several large textbooks. There was several coffee cups strewn across the table and a pizza box, which had only crusts left in it. The majority of the Digimon were asleep in one corner of the room, only Patamon and Terriormon were awake and they were talking to each other in another corner of the room.
"Do you think someone should go in there and check up on Erin, make sure she's okay?" Davis asked, looking at his watch.
"Davis, that's the third time you've asked that. It's only been half an hour. Are you afraid she's going to blow up the computer or something?" Kari asked, everyone was getting a little irritated with Davis' persistent questioning about Erin.
"No it's not that, it's just..." But before he could finish the rest of the sentence, Erin emerged from the room, as if on cue, holding a piece of paper. This interruption came as something of a relief for Davis, as he didn't have a clue how he was going to finish that sentence.
"Okay, of the countries that can afford the research, only fourteen have started. The USA, Russia and Japan have almost finished and are nearly ready to start implementing the program. The UK is the only country, so far, to have completed the research and already have the programs running." Erin said reading from the paper in her hand.
"How did you find that out?" Izzy asked, but Erin ignored the question and carried on speaking.
"As Izzy said, it is being used by the government to keep track of convicted computer criminals who's probation has passed, but it's also being used by the security services to spy on other countries." She finished, passing the paper to Tai for him to read.
"But how did you find all that out so quickly, and more importantly how did you find out about what it's being used for?" Izzy asked again, "I would imagine that sort of information is highly classified." He added.
"It is, it's just, I have..." Erin said leaving a pause while she tried to finish the sentence. "The less said about that the better." She finished abruptly. T.K and Davis both looked at each other once again, they had a good idea where she had got the information.
"I hope you saved me some pizza." Erin said, changing the subject, seeing the pizza box on the table. The remaining members of the group looked very guilty.
"I think there's some in the kitchen." Sora said, hiding herself from Erin's line of sight. Mimi emerged from the kitchen soon after carrying another pizza box, which she opened at the coffee table; thankfully it still had half a pizza left. Most of the group let out a large sigh of relief when they saw this. Erin took a piece and sat down on the sofa next to Davis.
"This is incredible." Tai said after he finished reading the paper Erin had handed him. "This pretty much settles it, we're fighting the British government. Either that or some really good computer hacker." He joked.
"My moneys on the government." Matt said.
"I don't know, there are some really good hackers out there." Izzy said. Everyone stopped doing what they were doing and turned to look at Izzy. "I would imagine." He added reading everyone's expression, he then became very interested the slice of pizza he was eating.
"Well for the time being lets assume it's the government." Tai said jokingly, looking in Izzy's direction. "We know they're using these sentinel programs right, so how long would it take for them to take over the whole world." Tai asked.
"They may already have." Izzy said, now becoming interested in the conversation again.
"Not necessarily," Erin said. "It's more likely that they are using the sentinels to gain a foot hold before they send in the troops, so to speak." She added.
"So you think they are going to send humans in as well as these virus thingies?" Mimi asked.
"That's more than likely." Erin replied. T.K and Davis were now becoming worried. Davis indicated to T.K that he wanted to speak to him. They told the others they were going to get some more coffee and disappeared into the kitchen.
"Why is she telling us all this?" Davis asked T.K.
"I'm not too sure, maybe she trying to set a trap for us." T.K reasoned.
"Whatever she's doing we've got to confront her soon, before she has a chance to get any of us hurt." Davis said
"Agreed." T.K replied, and with that they took the now refilled coffee pot and returned to the lounge room.
"That was quick." Yolei said, as they entered the lounge.
"There was only instant left." Davis remarked. The pair then rejoined the group who were now discussing the best way to go about fighting the intruders, who they had now guessed were the British government.
"Isn't it a bit unwise to openly engage the government of another country?" Cody asked.
"Well under the usual circumstances it would be. But this is anything but usual." Izzy answered.
"He's right," Joe added. "They're invading the Digital World, a place not too many people know about. If they were to make the conflict between themselves and anyone apposed to them public, then they would also have to reveal information about the Digital World, which I'm quite sure they don't want to do." He said.
"I'm guessing that only a small number of people know about this incursion," Ken said, adding to the conversation. "If it is the British government then their secret service will be doing all the foot work, which means that they know and also the prime minister will know about it. In fact it's likely that only a small division of MI6, I think it's called, will know." He added.
"How did you guess all that?" Sora asked.
"Don't you people watch Stargate SG-1?" He asked the group, there was a unanimous shaking of heads coming from the rest of the group.
"Off topic people," Tai said, getting the attention of the group. "What we really need to know is how they know about the Digital World, last time I checked only digi-destined could keep memories of it for any length of time." He asked the group.
"They must be using digi-destined from England then." Izzy hypothesized. T.K thought to himself that the rest of the group would be able to piece together enough of the evidence that led to the conclusion that Erin was with MI6, but no one even mentioned it. The same thought was going through Davis' mind; he glanced at T.K briefly and saw the same look of concern on his face.
"It would also be good to know how long they have known about it." Kari said, joining the conversation.
"About three years." Erin said off hand, everyone's eyes suddenly turned to her, as they had done Izzy. Davis could now see several members of the group making the connection he and T.K had done, especially Yolei, who was quick to make judgements anyway. However, still nobody voiced their concerns and just waited for Erin's explanation. Erin thought quickly.
"While I was on the computer earlier," she paused, "I came across a directive addressed to an MI6 officer named only as the DWC commanding officer. It said that the sentinels were almost ready and to prepare for their insertion. I guessed that the DWC is the Digital World command; it was dated three years ago." She said. The other members of the group were still looking at her but some looked as if they bought her story. Others, T.K noticed, did not look as if they believed her. But before anyone could say anything else, Izzy received a message that one of the Digimon in the Digital World wanted to speak to the group.
Once all of the digi-destined were in Izzy's room once more, Izzy opened the digi port for communication and found Biyomon on the other end.
"Hey Biyomon, how are you?" Sora asked, pleased to see her Digimon safe.
"I'm fine Sora, but that's not what I called about." The small bird like Digimon said from the other side of the port.
"What is it?" Tai asked.
"I have just seen a group of humans in the Digital World." She answered.
"They were probably just other digi-destined." Joe reasoned.
"No, these were in a small group, they looked like the army or something, and they were carrying weapons." Biyomon said, full of alarm.
"Weapons!" Matt said
"Yes." Biyomon agreed.
"How old did they look?" Izzy asked.
"That's the really strange thing," Biyomon said, "They looked about Kari's age." She answered.
"They were kids!" Tai said, and then to himself he said, "Well of course they were kids, only kids can go to the Digital World"
"Yeah, and that's not all. I have heard that groups like this have been spotted around for the last week and a half." Izzy was now writing madly on his pad that held all his notes pertaining to the Digital World invasion.
"Did they have any markings in any of their clothes or anything." Ken asked.
"Well they each had one of those strange blue D-3s like Erin's attached to their shoulders and one of them dropped this." Biyomon held up what looked to be an identification patch.
"DWC." Erin said.
Almost everyone, T.K and Davis noticed, had now come to the same conclusion about Erin, after hearing about the blue D-3 and her recognition of the identification patch.
"Thanks Biyomon." Sora said, she then added, "Keep an eye on them for us"
"Okay, I will. Speak to you soon." Biyomon said as the port closed.
"It is this MI6 then." Tai said.
"Evidently so." Matt said.
"So they have already sent in the troops." Izzy added.
"This is all happening too fast." Erin said. The group was silent. All eyes tuned, once again, to Erin. T.K and Davis exchanged a brief look at each other. It appeared that the whole group had now come to the same conclusion.
"Who are you?" Tai asked, breaking the silence.
"Excuse me?" Erin asked in reply, but before Tai could answer, Davis jumped in.
"How do you know all of this? How could you possibly recognise that sign as being MI6? Who are you?" He reiterated Tai's question.
"DWC? It was written on the patch." Erin answered; it was now her turn to try a humours response. However, she realised that most, if not all, of the group had now pieced enough clues together to work out what she was by themselves. There was silence once again in the room. She looked around the room and saw the same expression in everybody's faces.
"You are not going to like what I have to say." Erin said finally, breaking the silence. "Two years ago I was approached by someone at school. He said he had a job for me, said I fitted a profile. He gave me a card with a number on to phone, which I did. I found out it was MI6, for a special project and that kids were being recruited for it, they didn't say why at the time. This turned out to be the DWC." She said explaining. Everyone was still silent so she carried on. "It turned out that this project was so secret that not even the whole of MI6 knew about it. So I went to work for them, they didn't let us know what they doing, why they were doing it, or even why they were recruiting children for it. All we knew was that it was important, to them anyway. At the time, I thought the profile I fitted was my ear for languages; it didn't even occur to me that it might be because of this strange device that had come out of my computer. Anyway, they trained us for different jobs. Some were going to be field agents, I was research and development." She continued. She looked once again at the group some looked interested at what she was saying, some looked angry, and others looked indifferent.
"You lied to us." Yolei said.
"Actually I didn't. Almost everything I told you in the past was the truth. About my digivice, my going to the Digital World only the once, that was all the truth. I just neglected to mention about my previous employment." Erin replied.
"Well that's just as bad." Yolei said back. Ken put his hand on her arm to try and calm her; it had partial success in that Yolei said nothing more.
"Well inquiring minds want to know, what exactly it is that you did for them that you had to keep from us"
"As I said I was R and D, so I had no access to any of the real information at the time. They just told me what they wanted doing and my team did it. The weapons the others were carrying for example, we were responsible for them." She answered.
"You were what?" Matt shouted.
"It's not something I'm proud of, in fact before we go any further I think you should know I no longer work for them." Erin shouted back.
"And how are we supposed to believe that now." Yolei shouted.
"I told you, you wouldn't like what I had to say." Erin shouted to Yolei ignoring her question.
"We don't." Yolei said back, lowering her voice.
"Well I believe her," Cody said, everyone turned to look at him. "I was wrong about Ken, and although I don't agree with what Erin has done I still trust her." He said.
"Were you ever planning to tell us?" Sora asked.
"Yes once they had been removed from the Digital World." Erin answered.
"Who was that guy I saw you talking with the other day in the park?" Davis asked.
"That was my MI6 handler, Daniel Johns. The guy I reported to." Erin answered, but before she could explain about the meeting, Yolei started shouting again.
"Another lie. You just told us you don't work for them any more." She said.
"If you would let me finish." Erin shouted back.
"I get this all the time." Izzy told Erin, trying to break the hostile atmosphere but no one paid the comment any attention.
"Johns has been trying to get me to work for them against you ever since I met you. The guy just wont take a hint." She said. Yolei calmed down a little after hearing Erin's explanation.
"Listen," Erin said, after a moment's silence, "The last thing I want to do is fracture your group, and if you want me to leave then I will, willingly. But at the moment I am useful to you, I know things about MI6 that can help you fight them. You don't have to trust me just listen." She said.
"Start talking." Matt said.
"First thing you have to realise is those weapons are extremely dangerous, especially to Digimon. They are small EMP generators, designed to destroy anything electronic. If a Digimon gets hit by one of those, they're not coming back, they get totally dispersed with no chance of reconfiguration." She said, and then braced herself for the inevitable onslaught that was about to come.
"And you designed them. You designed a weapon to kill innocent creatures just trying to defend themselves." Matt said, in an oddly calm tone of voice.
"Yes I did it. Is that what you want to hear." Erin shouted back, tears now forming in her eyes.
"What I want to hear is.." but Matt was cut short by Davis shouting,
"Okay, neutral corners people. Lets take five minuets to calm down and clear our heads." Everyone obeyed Davis' order without question and one by one filed out of Izzy's bedroom, everyone except Erin and Davis.
"Just so you know I'm with Cody on this one." Davis said to Erin. She smiled weekly.
"Thank you." Was all she could manage to say. After a short silence Davis said,
"Why did you do it, why do these things for them?" He asked.
"They didn't tell us anything. I had no idea what I was developing or what it was going to be used for. I just did what they told me to do." She answered, choking back the tears that were now rapidly forming. Silence returned to the pair, and was not broken until Erin said,
"I hate everything they made me do. Everything, and I want to do all I can to help you take them down." She said finding it increasingly hard to keep the tears back. "But now it looks like that will be impossible." She added before she broke down completely. She started crying uncontrollably, Davis tried to comfort her but to no avail. So he resigned to just sitting, holding her being her shoulder to cry on.
In the lounge the rest of the group sat around the coffee table in silence, none of them looking at each other. Some of them were visibly more upset by the turn of events than the others. Terriormon and Patamon had joined the other Digimon, and were now asleep so they missed the heated arguments that had come from the other room. After what seemed like forever, Davis emerged from Izzy's bedroom and signalled to the other digi-destined to come back in. Erin had composed her self a little now and was standing by the window.
The atmosphere was slightly less hostile now that everyone had had the chance to clear their heads, however there were still some very angry faces around the room. Once everyone was in the room Erin began,
"Everyone listen please. I didn't want any of this to happen, and I assure you as soon as I found out what they were doing I left as soon as I could, only they wont accept that." Matt looked as if he were about to say something but was cut off by Erin,
"Please let me finish before you tear into me." She said, and Matt backed off. "I really had no idea what they were doing until I broke into the main computer, several of my team were beginning to get suspicious of what was going on and as I had received the training in computer infiltration it was my job to find out what exactly was going on." She paused for breath before continuing. "What I found was truly horrifying. Everything my team had been designing and developing, the EMP guns, the sentinels, everything was for a large-scale incursion of another world. The Digital World. They came across it quite by accident, one of their computer experts stumbled across what looked like a portal into another dimension. That was three years ago, it took them a year to find out exactly what it was, and then they started recruiting. I think they got most of the digi-destined in the country, or at least it looked like that. Soon after they sent in the sentinels that my team had modified, and it's taken them nearly two years for them to get enough of a foot hold to be able to start sending in the field agents." She paused again. She looked as if she was recalling a very bad memory "Then I got to what they were planning to do once they had control of the world. They were planning to dissect the entire world, in a manner of speaking, with no regard for the life there. You see an entire world made of data, an entirely digital world, is a very unique thing to come across, and unique is always valuable. At least it is to them. Once they had found all the secrets the Digital World had to offer they were going to sell it to the highest bidder. Can you imagine the advances in computer technology that would be made with the information the Digital World had to offer?" She paused once more. It was becoming obvious that this was very hard for her to relay to the digi-destined, especially in light of what she had done against the Digital World. "Once I knew this I immediately knew they had to be taken down. One of the last things I did before I left them was to get a transfer order, for my dad, to come here. You see there is a small resistance movement within the DWC, once they found out what was going on, and you lot are legendary among us, so I came here hoping to elicit your help. I left under the pretext of spying on you, to my superiors at least, and once I got here I let them know just what I thought of them. The only problem was that I got lumbered with Johns. But now he considers me an enemy of MI6." She finished. She finally sat down in front of the group, tears once again forming in the corners of her eyes. "Okay I'm finished now, you can tear into me all you want." She said, waiting for the slew of arguments to come. But none came. Everyone was silent.
"We have to stop them. Immediately." Erin said, after several minuets of silence, "Now I can try to do it on my own, or you can help. I don't expect you to want to help me after what I have done," she said, pausing. But before she could finish her sentence, Davis stood up.
"I'm willing to help." He said, turning to face the rest of the group. Cody was the next to stand.
"I've been wrong about people before, and if Erin's right then she deserves our help." He said, also turning to face the group. Erin now stood up, between the two boys but said nothing. Ken was the next to join the small group.
"After what I did to the Digimon." He said, but he didn't need to finish the sentence, the others knew what he was thinking. Eventually, one by one, the other digi-destined stood up to join Erin, some more reluctantly than others. Matt and Yolei were the last to stand. Erin couldn't repress the smile that appeared on her face after all of the digi-destined had agreed to help her.
"Thank you," she said warmly to the group. "I don't expect you all to trust me, but if we are going to succeed then you need to at least listen to me." She told the group.
"Hey Newbie, we all have things in our past we would rather forget." Ken said defensively to Erin. She nodded in acknowledgement and smiled at the fact he was still using her nickname. "And that is no reason for us to stop trusting each other, you're here after all, telling us all this." He added.
"Shall was all sit down?" Erin asked after a moment's silence. She was trying to lift the hostile atmosphere in the room, and it worked. Most of the group smiled now that they had seen that everyone was standing, and at Erin's injection of humour. However, there was still an air of distrust around some of the occupants of the room. Erin expected this and as such didn't mention anything about it.
"So that was how you were able to gain access to all the information, you hacked MI6." Izzy said, grinning.
"It wasn't actually that involved. Johns hasn't yet removed my clearance from the computer systems back in London, so I was able to just log straight in. And as my department had direct access to the sentinels none of that information was classified for my clearance level." Erin told Izzy.
"Interesting." Was Izzy's response.
"Okay if we're going to take down this DWC then we need a plan." Tai said, changing the subject to more important matters. "Any ideas?" He asked. The group sat pondering for a while. Several plans were brought forward, but none of them could have been implemented as they all relied on taking on the sentinel viruses and forgetting about the teams of digi-destined from MI6. Finally after the tenth unsuccessful suggestion, Erin ventured fourth a plan.
"Okay, how about if I go back to Johns." She said. This generated more distrust from the group.
"And do what?" Yolei asked.
"Tell him I have reconsidered. Go back to London, and try to shut them down from the inside." She said.
"How?" Tai asked.
"I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I can do some serious damage to their computer systems from the base and close their digi port permanently." She said.
"What kind of tricks?" Izzy asked, taking out his notepad once again.
"Later Izz," Tai told him. "I don't like that plan." He added.
"What, do you think I am going to betray you?" Erin asked.
"No. Not at all, if anything, quite the opposite, which is the problem." Tai answered. "If you go back, they're going to suspect something's up which is going to make them suspicious of you. When you ask for an immediate transfer back to London, that's only going to make things worse. They will be watching you like a hawk. If you put one foot out of line, do anything that they might think is against them and you'll be in serious trouble, which means we'll be in serious trouble as well as the whole Digital World and we can't afford that." Tai told her.
"Your right, I hadn't thought of that." Erin said, "Just give me some time, I'll think of another way to stop them, a plan B." She said.
"You're right we all need a break, let's call it a night." Tai said to the group. It was now very late, and most of the group were very tired. It had been an extremely long day, and the group were about ready for some sleep.
"Right, so shall we meet back here tomorrow?" Tai asked.
"Oh no," Davis moaned. "We've been inside the last two days, can't we go outside tomorrow?" He asked.
"Fine, we'll meet in the park. About ten thirty?" Tai suggested. There were some reluctant agreements from certain members of the group, but everybody eventually agreed. After everyone had said goodbye, everyone left to go back to their apartments.
They all went in separate directions from leaving Izzy's place, which left Davis and Erin alone once more.
"Thank you so much for sticking with me today." Erin told him.
"That's no problem, like Ken said we all have things we would rather not have on instant replay." He told her.
"I was going to ask about that. What is the deal with Ken and the Digital World?" She asked.
"That is a long story, and I'm probably not the one to tell you. When this is all over we'll have to replay our first meeting, only this time with no secrets. It'll be a proper get to know you type of thing." Davis said.
"No liars, no guns, no money." Erin said, smiling properly for the first time all day.
"I don't know about that, someone's going to have to buy the pizza." Davis said, also smiling. Erin laughed a little.
"Hey guys, wait up." Came a voice from behind them. They turned round to see T.K running to catch them up.
"Dude, where have you been?" Davis asked T.K. He blushed a little.
"Nowhere." T.K said grinning, he then turned to Erin.
"Erin, I want to apologise." He said,
"What for?" She asked.
"Well for not trusting you, for thinking you were selling the Digital World out, but now I can tell you are as devoted as we are to protecting it. Maybe even more so about this whole MI6 thing." He said.
"That's fine, but you know you have every right to feel like that." She said.
"Oh please, lets not start that again." Davis broke in.
"Sorry." Erin said quickly. "Actually, I do have a question, why is it that Patamon and Gatomon stay Patamon and Gatomon when we're out of the Digital World but yours Cody's and Yolei's Digimon change?" She asked.
"I'm not too sure, it might have something to do with the fact that Patamon came to this world before and digivolved naturally to Patamon while here and Demiveemon and the others haven't. And Gatomon was already Gatomon when she was brought here by Myotismon." T.K answered.
"I noticed Terriormon stayed Terriormon as well." Davis answered.
"Now I'm stuck. I don't have an explanation for that one." T.K said. By this time they had reached T.K's apartment block, so he said goodnight to Erin and Davis and went inside. The pair then went the rest of the way to their apartments talking about nothing in particular.
"Well I'll see you tomorrow then." Erin said as they reached her apartment.
"Oh right. Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow." Davis said, not noticing they had already reached her block.
"Don't worry, I'll have plan B thought out by tomorrow." She told him.
"I'll hold you to that." He said, and with that they went their separate ways.
To Be Continued...