Chapter 7 - "Plan B..."
Yolei, Ken and Cody walked slowly to the bus stop where Ken caught his bus. They walked in silence, each in their own thoughts, but each thinking about the same thing. It was beginning to get dark, and by the time they had reached the bus stop the streetlights were coming on. Yolei was the first to speak, after they had stopped and were waiting for the bus.
"Do you really think she was serious, about the British government I mean?" She asked, the others remained silent. "I mean, don't you think that's it's a bit implausible that a security service of a government would go about recruiting kids to do their work for them?" She also asked. Ken considered this for a moment.
"I think it's very plausible." He answered.
"How?" Cody asked.
"Well think of it this way, they're a spy agency so they will use any and all resources to get their job done, regardless of what those resources are." Ken explained.
"That's a good point." Cody replied. The group returned to silence.
"But do you believe anything she said though?" Yolei asked.
"You still don't trust her do you?" Cody asked in return.
"Not entirely, no." Yolei answered.
"Well you trust me don't you?" Ken asked.
"Of course I do." Yolei said.
"And yet what I did to the Digital World was far worse than anything Erin has done." Ken reasoned.
"I know. It's not that really, it's just that after she lied to us like that, I can't help but think she might be hiding more from us." Yolei replied.
"I know how you feel, and I'm sure most of the others feel the same," Ken told Yolei, "But if we're going to save the Digital World, we're going to have to trust her. After all, she knows more about all this spy stuff than all of us." He finished.
"I know, and I'll try. I guess," she said. "Hey, you know what's been bugging me for a few days now?" Yolei asked, changing the subject quite abruptly. Yolei was well known for doing this, and everyone took it for granted that when they were having a lengthy conversation with her, the subject would change quite frequently.
"No, what?" Cody asked.
"When did Davis become claustrophobic? He never acted like that when we were in the Digital World last year." She asked.
"I really don't know." Ken answered.
"Me neither." Cody answered.
"He hasn't told you?" She asked Ken, "I thought you two were best friends?" She added.
"Maybe it's not something he feels comfortable talking about." Ken answered.
"Maybe your right. But I plan to find out though." Yolei said grinning. Ken was about to reply, but before he could his bus arrived.
"Late as usual." Was all he could manage to say before getting on the bus. He kissed Yolei goodbye and left. After the bus disappeared from view, Cody and Yolei continued walking back to their apartment block.
The following morning, at the Kamiya's apartment, Tai, Kari and Sora, who had spent the night there, were getting ready for today's meeting in the park. Matt and T.K had also joined them. At the kitchen counter Matt, Tai and Sora were discussing back up plans in case Erin was unable to think of a plan or if her plan was no good. While this was going on, in the lounge T.K and Kari were sitting on the sofa having their own conversation.
"So how about next Friday then?" Kari asked.
"Friday's good," T.K answered, "That is if we're all still alive by Friday." He joked.
"I'm sure whatever Erin has planned will be over by the weekend, and we can go back to just being normal again." Kari said.
"Have you even known anything like this be over so quickly"
"No, you have a point. I guess we will just have to trust that Erin knows what she's doing"
"You do trust her then"
"Do we have a choice," Kari answered, she left a pause before continuing. "I'm not one to pass judgement so quickly, but if she wanted to help us then why didn't she tell us right from the start." She asked.
"I'm not sure." T.K answered. They were silent for a moment before T.K spoke again, "You know what's really been annoying me about this whole situation?" He asked.
"No, what?" Kari asked in return.
"We haven't had any time for each other. I know we just arranged our second date, but we haven't spent any time alone for ever." He said. Kari grinned.
"We have time now." She said, eyeing her bedroom door. With that she grabbed T.K's hand and they headed towards her room. Tai, noticing their less than discreet getaway, stood up.
"Where are you two going?" He asked.
"We have to, err, talk to Gatomon about something." Kari answered hastily, and before anyone had the chance to say anything else they had disappeared into the room and closed the door. Tai stared, expressionless, at the spot where his sister and her boyfriend and been standing less than two seconds ago, blinked a few times then sat back down with the rest of the group. It was quite some time before anyone noticed that Gatomon was sleeping on one of the armchairs in the lounge.
"So what do we have so far?" Tai said trying to recap the backup plans the small group had come up with.
"Err, so far, running in the opposite direction screaming like six year olds." Matt said, making one of his wise cracks.
"So we can take that as nothing then." Sora answered, a little more helpfully.
"The only thing I can think of is we let Izzy try and do something to their computers." Tai said.
"Do you think he'll be able to do anything like that?" Sora asked.
"We can ask him," Matt said, "Maybe Yolei can help him, she knows her way around a computer." He added. They looked at each other for a moment.
"What's the time?" Sora asked.
"Ten." Tai answered.
"We'd better make a move towards the park then." Matt said.
"Okay, I'll get the love birds from Kari's room then." Tai said moving towards his sister's bedroom. He knocked on the door.
"Guys we have to go now." He shouted through the door. A loud thump was heard, which was quickly followed by T.K and Kari emerging from the room laughing hysterically. Kari was once again adjusting T.K's hat, only this time it was on her own head not his. This received some odd looks from the others but nothing was said. T.K and Kari collected their Digimon and headed for the front door.
"There you are Gatomon," Kari said, as she picked up her still half asleep Digimon from the chair. "We've been looking all over for you." She added, very unconvincingly. Gatomon, who had no idea what was going on, simply went back to sleep in Kari's arms. Kari and T.K headed out the door quickly to avoid the looks coming from the others.
"I'm glad to see you found some time to have some fun." Tai called after them. The trio then also left.
When they arrived at the park they found that a number of digi-destined were already there. Mimi was sitting with Izzy, talking, and Cody was with Davis, who were sitting near Erin. She was pacing up and down nervously, chewing on her thumb nail. As the small group joined the others sitting down, T.K and Kari gained some very strange looks as Kari was still wearing T.K's hat. Tai, who noticed these looks, said,
"You should have seen them come out of her bedroom." With that everybody rolled their eyes and continued with their conversations. Events like that were becoming more than a common occurrence. The small group sat with the others to wait for the rest of the group to arrive. Joe was the next to arrive, he sat with Mimi and Izzy and shortly after Yolei and Ken arrived. Erin waited a while before starting to explain her plan to the group. Davis had lost count of the amount of times he had told her to relax.
"If you keep chewing that thumb, you'll end up biting it off." He told her. This relaxed her a little but she still kept pacing nervously. After what she considered a suitable amount of time for everyone to greet each other, she stopped pacing and stood in front of the group.
"Hi," she said to the group. "Now that everybody's here..." She said, and then broke off. She paced a bit more, and then returned to the front of the group.
"My plan," she said, "We hack their computers. Royally screw over their systems and send them back to the Stone Age." She told them quickly.
"Hack MI6?" Tai asked.
"Yes." Erin answered.
"Bad idea," Izzy said, "They will trace us in two seconds, it's too risky." He explained.
"Well then we do it from the Digital World. They wont be able to get signal from us there. Believe me this is the only way to stop them." She said.
"Can we do something like that from the Digital World?" Cody asked.
"It's possible." Izzy said, considering the suggestion. "The only problem is that it will take longer than it would here"
"That's not too much of a problem though, is it?" Mimi asked.
"It shouldn't be, so long as we keep them occupied long enough so that they can't block our attacks on their systems." Erin answered.
"Okay so we attack their computers from the Digital World, what do we need to do?" Tai asked.
"We have to kill the three main areas of the system. Firstly their database, it holds all of the information regarding the Digital World. Next we go after the sentinels. They operate in two halves, one half running around the Digital World, the other on a computer communicating with its partner. We will have to go after the computer halves, without them the ones in the Digital World will cease to exist. Finally we have to close their port permanently, stop them from getting back in." Erin answered.
"Oh, so not a lot then." Matt said sarcastically. This gained a few grins from some of the group but was mostly ignored.
"That sounds reasonable, the only thing is we will have to wait for all of their teams to be out of the Digital World before we take their gate down." Tai said.
"That shouldn't be a problem, there are no plans for any teams to be sent in tomorrow." Erin replied.
"How do you know that?" Sora asked.
"I was looking through the files available to my clearance last night. For some reason Johns hasn't removed me from the system yet." Erin answered.
"He's probably using that to keep track of you, it will probably be a good idea not to go back on their systems anymore." Ken suggested.
"Yes, I thought of that," Erin said, "But with any luck they won't have a computer system to track me with for much longer." She added.
"How long do you think it will take you to destroy all of their systems?" Joe asked.
"There's no way I can do this on my own, I'll need help." Erin answered; she then turned to Izzy and Yolei. "Izzy, Yolei. You two have the most experience with this sort of thing. I'll need you to help me take their computers down." She told them. At hearing this Izzy started grinning.
"I'm going to help you to hack a government department?" He asked, but before waiting for an answer he added, "Yeah, I'll help. But it's not like I do this sort of thing any other time." He said quite unconvincingly.
"Of course." Erin replied grinning. She then turned to Yolei. "Yolei, you up for this?" She asked. Yolei didn't look nearly as excited as Izzy had done. She remained silent for some time. Ken then leaned over and whispered something to her that the others couldn't hear.
"I'll do it." She finally said, apprehensively. Erin grinned again.
"Excellent," she said, "I'll go over what you have to do later." She told them.
"We have another problem." Tai said.
"What's that?" Cody asked.
"The sentinels." Erin answered, making eye contact with Tai who nodded in agreement.
"Once they find out what we're doing they are going to attack us with everything they've got." He told the group.
"And since they can become anything, that's going to make them quite difficult to fight." Sora said, following the others line of reasoning.
"That's right," Erin said, "They aren't that dangerous, but if we don't know what we're fighting we could end up attacking something innocent." She said.
"How do we get round that one then?" Izzy asked.
"I think I can get them all assume the same form, and make them stay like that, but it will have to be unique. Something different that isn't naturally occurring in the Digital World so we know what we're attacking. Any ideas?" She asked. The group was silent for a moment.
"Keramon." Tai said. Several members of the group drew blanks on the name Keramon, including Erin.
"Keramon?" Cody asked. Tai then launched into an explanation.
"Do you remember the virus Digimon that attacked the Internet about five years ago?" He asked the group. Most of them nodded their heads, but for the benefit of those who still looked confused, which consisted of Erin, Tai continued. "There was a Digimon, which was created by an American digi-destined called Willis, that got infected by this virus. He thought it would be a good idea to try and take over the Internet." He explained to her. "He launched nuclear missiles at Japan and the USA, but they were stopped when Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon DNA digivolved to Omnimon and defeated the Digimon called Diaboromon. Anyway, Keramon was that Digimon's rookie form." He finished.
"That would make sense then," Erin said, "There's not likely to be many Keramon running around the Digital World if there was only one to begin with"
"Exactly." Tai exclaimed.
"Okay then, tell me what he looked like and I will make all of the sentinels take his form." Erin said.
"I think I still have a picture of him, I'll dig it out for you later." Izzy said.
"If we're doing this in the Digital World, there's one more thing we need to do," Erin told the group, "We will have to make a stop at one of the DWC's equipment stores before we start our attack"
"What for?" Joe asked.
"Weapons." Erin said, solemnly. This remark shocked most of the digi-destined.
"What do we need weapons for?" Matt asked, getting slightly angry.
"When those sentinels attack, they are going to do so in truly massive numbers. There will be far too many for us to take out with only our Digimon, not to mention the fact that three of us won't be fighting at all." Erin answered, matching Matt's anger. "We can use their EMP guns. They will disperse the sentinels quickly and efficiently." She told them.
"I'm not comfortable with this." Tai told Erin.
"Neither am I," she shouted back, "But it's the only way to keep them off our backs until we're finished." She added, more calmly. Ignoring the stunned silence of the group she continued. "Okay, looking through a map they have generated, this appears to be the safest place to launce our attack." She indicated an area surrounded by forest on the map. "This should provide us with some cover from attack. That is providing they don't have any sentinels acting as trees in that area. Also there is an equipment store in a cave not far from there." She told the group. Davis paled a little at hearing about the cave, but he managed at avoid anyone seeing by quickly looking behind him. "Once we collect everything we need from the cave we can go onto the forest and start our attack." She finished. She waited a moment then resumed pacing.
"That's the plan?" Matt asked.
"That's the only feasible one I could think of." Erin answered.
"Sounds reasonable." Matt replied.
"I'm glad you think so. Does anyone have any questions?" She asked.
"Basically you want us to watch your backs while you three work your magic?" Tai asked.
"That's about the sum it, yeah. It that a problem?" Erin asked back.
"No problem, so long as I don't have to do any computer work," Tai said, "my computing skills extend to surfing the Internet and writing e-mails. What you're talking about is going way over my head." He added, and to illustrate the point he passed one of his hands, back and fourth, over his head. This made the group chuckle a little and help lift the less than friendly atmosphere that had settled over the group since Erin had mentioned using weapons. Once she was sure there were no other questions, Erin separated Izzy and Yolei form the group and moved to a quieter spot while the other digi-destined split into smaller groups and started their own conversations.
"Any luck thinking up a back up plan?" Matt asked. Tai Matt and Sora had resumed their earlier conversation, and were now sitting apart from the rest of the group.
"Not yet, it looks like we're going to have to go with Erin's plan." Tai answered.
"Hey, even Matt said it sounded reasonable." Sora said, defending the plan.
"True, but she wants us to use weapons." Matt countered.
"From what I understand of these virus things, their not alive like the Digimon so destroying them is doing anything wrong. Besides if what she says is true about the numbers they'll attack in, there could be too many for our Digimon to handle, even for the ultimates." Sora said.
"These are all good points," Tai said, breaking up the impending argument, "But I would still like a fall back in case things go wrong." He told them. The group was silent for a moment.
"Well, I'm all out of ideas. How about you two?" Matt asked the others.
"Me too." Sora said, joining the joke.
"Well just keep thinking on it. I don't want to go in there tomorrow without a backup plan." Tai told the other two.
"Since when has a backup meant anything to you anyway?" Matt asked sarcastically. "We're already on plan B. Are you aiming for the whole alphabet?" He asked just as sarcastically.
"He's got a point Tai. You never really have been one for thinking up back up plans. In fact you could have been the pin up boy for frontal assault in the old days." Sora said. This made Tai grin a little.
"You think I could be a pin up boy?" He asked, casting a sly grin in Sora's direction and flexing his arm muscles.
"Oh, to be in the warm glow of all this testosterone." Matt said to himself, but loud enough so the others could hear him.
"Like you would be any different if your girlfriend had just told you you could be a pin up boy." Tai challenged, still grinning.
"Yeah well fortunately I don't have that problem, and besides I think Sora was being sarcastic." Matt shot back, also grinning. While Tai and Matt were arguing, Sora had moved between them and grabbed them both by the ear.
"Will the both of you stop it. You could both make the centre page of 'Big Boys In Boots'. As a couple." She told them. This caused the boys to burst out laughing.
"You think?" Matt asked. After they had broken free of Sora's vice like grip, the boys struck a pose together that wouldn't look out of place in a clothes catalogue. This caused them to laugh even more.
"If you wouldn't mind I'd like to get back to the matter at hand." She said.
"To hell with a backup plan," Tai said, "If something goes wrong we'll just have to improvise like we did in the old days." He told them in between fits of laughter.
"That's more like the Tai I used to know." Sora said.
"Besides, I don't think Tai couldn't think up a backup plan." Matt said, also between fits of laughter.
"This is also true." Tai said, his laughter now subsiding but still with a very large grin on his face.
"What is going on over there?" Mimi asked. She was sitting in another small group with Joe, Cody and Ken. They had just witnessed Tai and Matt's display, and were also laughing.
"It looks like they're posing for a men's fashion magazine." Joe said.
"Well what ever makes them happy." Ken said. This group had been quizzing Mimi about what living in New York was like as the only time anyone had really had a chance was at Mimi's welcome back party. She cast a last glance back at the smaller group, who were now collapsed on the ground in hysterics, and turned back to her group.
"Sorry, what did you ask?" She asked Joe. He was also still watching the other group, but Mimi's question brought him back to his small group.
"Oh, I wanted to know if you had the chance to see any other parts of America while you were over there?" He asked her.
"Oh yeah," she answered enthusiastically, "We went all over the place. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Yosemite national park, which was really beautiful. We went to Florida to see a space shuttle launce. We, somehow, found ourselves in Oklahoma and got caught up with this group of people chasing tornados." She told them
"I bet that was fun." Cody said.
"It was actually quite fascinating, people do it for a living out there"
"Are they mad?" Joe asked, sounding surprised at the fact people would choose to do something so dangerous.
"Probably, there are other people that do it for fun as well." She told them.
"They must be mad." Joe said, even more surprised. Mimi giggled a little at his remark.
"Where was your favourite place you saw while you were out there?" Cody asked.
"Outside of New York, Seattle. Now there is a city I could happily spend the rest of my life." She answered.
"Isn't that right up the top near Canada where it's really cold?" Joe asked.
"Well it's quite near the top, in the state of Washington. It wasn't actually that cold, when I was there at least. But even if it was, the city would more than make up for it. For a start the view from the top of the space needle was just awesome." She said.
"And don't tell me it had its fair share of shops as well." Ken said.
"Well of course." Mimi answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Hey guys, shouldn't we be doing something about what's going to happen tomorrow?" Cody asked.
"Like what?" Ken asked.
"I don't know, it just seems like we're a little too relaxed for people who are about to do battle with possibly thousands of computer viruses." He said to the group.
"Believe me this is the best thing for us to be doing," Joe told him, "Getting worked up and nervous will only make things worse tomorrow." He added.
"Besides, I'd rather not think about that today, the weathers too nice." Mimi said stretching out on the grass.
While this was going on T.K, Kari and Davis were having an all-together different conversation.
"So, you and Erin seem to getting quite close." Kari remarked.
"Yeah, I noticed that as well Davis. What's going on between you two?" T.K asked.
"There's nothing going on." Davis answered.
"Oh come on. Do you really expect us to believe that?" Kari asked rhetorically.
"Believe what you like, but I'm telling you there's nothing between me and Carter." Davis told them.
"Okay lets look at the evidence," T.K said, putting on his best game show presenter voice. "First up was the large amount of time you spent together when she first joined the group." He explained to Davis, now in his own voice.
"Then there was that hug in the cave." Kari said joining in.
"Don't forget you were one of the first to side with Erin yesterday." T.K continued.
"It's also common knowledge that Erin has had her eye on you ever since she came here from England." Kari finished.
"I had completely forgotten about that." T.K said, turning to Kari before returning to Davis.
"Okay so maybe there's some chemistry, but honestly we're just friends." Davis said to them.
"Oh there we go, now I know something else is going on." Kari said grinning broadly.
"What do you mean?" Davis asked.
"Do you really expect us to believe you now after using that excuse. The very excuse that me and Kari copyrighted." T.K said also grinning.
"Oh man, I can't believe I said that." Davis said disappointedly to himself. "Okay, so maybe I do like her a little." He said, "But that's as far as it's gone so far." He added quickly.
"I knew we would get to the bottom of it eventually." Kari said while high fiving T.K.
"I was going to ask her out on a date, but then all this blew up and I never got a chance." Davis told the pair. The small group was silent for a moment.
"Davis if there's one thing I've learnt since I started going out with Kari is you should never wait to tell anyone how you feel." T.K said to Davis sympathetically. "I did, and look how long it took us to get together." T.K added.
"You should tell her Davis, as soon a possible." Kari added.
"I would, but now really isn't the best time for that." Davis said to them.
"Then wait until it's over, but don't wait too long." T.K told him.
"Okay, but you have to help me. I'm not very good with this sort of thing." Davis replied looking vaguely in Erin's direction.
"Your on." T.K and Kari said together.
While those conversations were going on, Erin was still talking business with Izzy and Yolei. She was explaining to them what they needed to do the following day.
"We'll each take one system. That way we can get through them more quickly and also it will present DWC with more than one target and hopefully confuse them." Erin told the pair.
"That sounds reasonable." Izzy said.
"First, Yolei I want you to take down the database. That should be fairly easy as it's the least protected part of their computer network. When you're done with that you can move on to help Izzy." She said turning to Izzy, "I want you to concentrate on getting the port closed." She told him.
"That could be tricky as we haven't had to do that before, I'm not sure how to do it. I'll have to do some research later." He said.
"Okay, that's probably a good idea. When you're both finished with that you can move on to help me. I'll be attacking the computer that holds the sentinels. It's the most heavily guarded section of the network. It'll probably take me twenty minutes just to break through the security on the computer." She said to them.
"Okay so that's the plan, what do I do?" Yolei asked, it was the first time she had spoken since being separated from the rest of the group.
"Once you're in you will have to delete the main files on the database. There are four main files, which must be deleted individually. There are also several sub files, but they can be removed at the same time. You will know when you have finished because all of the remaining files will make no sense because they are linked to the files that have been removed." As Erin was talking Yolei made mental notes on what she had to do.
"And how about when we get to sentinel computer?" Izzy asked.
"There is a similar procedure. I won't know exactly what will need to be done until I get in there." She answered.
"Okay, I have just e-mailed you a picture of Keramon so you know what to make the sentinels look like." Izzy said to Erin. He had his laptop set-up and typing something.
"Thanks. Well if that's all, I suggest we go and make a plan of action with the rest of the group." Erin suggested. The small nodded on agreement, stood up and walked towards the other smaller groups.
Once everyone noticed Erin, Izzy and Yolei walking towards them, they stopped their conversations and turned to face the trio. Tai was the first to speak.
"You know what your doing?" He asked.
"I think we'll get through." Izzy answered.
"We will have to start early tomorrow as it could take quite a long time to take the computers down." Erin told the group.
"Right, so if we meet at my place at nine thirty we can go from there." Tai suggested to the group. Several members of the group groaned at hearing they had to be up so early. Tai looked around the group, "Is that okay with everyone?" He asked. Everyone, reluctantly, nodded their heads in agreement.
"I say we try to dial into this port," Erin said indicating a gate on the map near the area she had indicated earlier. "If all goes well we shouldn't emerge too far from it. Once we arrive we will quickly need to make our way to the equipment store to gear up and from there onto the forest to begin." She said. Everybody seemed to agree with this recommendation.
"I suggest we get lots of rest tonight, and feed up your Digimon. They'll need all the energy they can get for tomorrow." Tai told them. Once again the group silently agreed. In the short time she had known her Digimon, Erin had realised that they rarely stop eating.
"Izzy, Yolei, I suggest you work on a way to take down the gate tonight." Erin suggested. The pair both agreed. With that the meeting came to a natural end. With a few good byes the group split up once more to prepare for their upcoming task in the Digital World.
To Be Continued...