Chapter Seven
Digital Doubt
Gradually, Gen awoke. The first thing he noticed were green sheets. The second was an unblemished tan ceiling. He rolled over, looking frantically around. Where am I? Then his brain caught up with him. Right. The new house.
Gen's new room was still sparsely appointed. The bed was there, and a few boxes were laid in a corner, with some books and clothes laid on top of them. Gen's computer was partially unpacked, and some foam peanuts were swept into a corner, though not picked up. The walls were white, but the ceiling had been painted- a mystery, since tan wasn't much of an improvement. It lacked the somehow reassuring crack that curled spider-like in the corner. Still, Gen relaxed.
Reclining stiffly near his head was a smiling stuffed animal. It resembled a brown dog with featureless ears and a tufted tail. It had no name, though his mom called it Inu-chan, or U-chan. Gen hadn't needed it to sleep since he was six years old, and sometimes wondered why he kept it. It was just a part of life, he supposed.
He examined his recent memories. Left Kim's house, turned up at the river for no explicit reason. Dinosaur attacks, fake Digivice turns on, puppy appears. Try to protect dog, get struck. Short blank space here. Last memory is a gentle voice and pungent smell. After that, dreams. Gen frowned, lying on his back. It didn't work. It would make sense for it all to have been a dream. He didn't remember how he got to the river, or how he'd returned to his new room, so the best he could assume was that he hadn't left. But he didn't remember coming home after visiting Kim, either.
Gen remembered what the dog had said. If you're dreaming, why am I here too? He noticed how tidy the bed sheets were, as if it had been made while he was asleep. The Digivice was on the floor next to his bed, and it wasn't turned on. Too confusing. Gen felt like his memories were scrambled in the wrong order, in a very dreamlike way.
He slid groggily out of bed, his feet automatically taking him in the direction his closet used to be in. He pinched himself, and noticed he was still wearing his clothes from the day before. Light streamed through the two windows.
Gen wondered what to do. Ask Kim. Gen felt in his pocket, and found the paper. He still had the address, which was good, since he couldn't remember it at the moment. He'd just take couple of minutes to walk to her house, and ask Kim what she remembered him doing. It might look silly, but it would go a long way towards easing his mind.
So Gen left the room. Neither mother nor father was in the house; that was odd. He walked more quickly. Without realizing it, by the time he reached the door, he was running. Unheeded in his wake, a note fluttered off the new refrigerator. The note read, " Gen. If you wake up, we're at work. I called the school, so you're excused for today. Love, mom. " It landed on the table, next to the clock, which said 11:44 AM.
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Liz leaned towards Jasmine, who was standing behind her in the lunch line. "It's funny," she remarked.
"What's funny?" Jasmine asked. "Do you mean the way Bobby Jr. peed in the water fountain, 'cuz that was-"
"I mean, I haven't seen the new guy at all today. No one misses their second day of school."
Jasmine shrugged. "He's from Japan, right? Maybe today's a weekend over there, and he forgot."
"That makes sense," Liz accepted, nodding.
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While looking for the address on the paper, Gen began to suspect that he was in the wrong neighborhood. He'd started in the same direction he'd gone in the previous evening, but the house numbers were way off. Better hurry, then. I'm impatient. Gen wasn't sure if he'd thought that. He changed directions.
Eventually he saw a street sign with the same name as was written down. But he didn't recognize the street at all. This street was lined with single houses, not duplexes. The houses all seemed older, too. The ground slanted down from a hill, whereas Gen remembered Kim's street as being flat. And instead of evergreen bushes, the yards were full of leafy trees. He looked around briefly, but none of the other streets looked familiar. Could he have gotten the wrong address? Or had he dreamed the entire meeting with Kim, too? He shook his head, and pinched himself again. Gen was lost, anyway, not having memorized his own new address, either. His walk, which had ended up taking more than just a few minutes, was making him even more confused than before.
The house with the address written on the paper was stucco, with a tiled roof and slabs of rock pressed into the sides. The shady, attractive yard was full of ferns, ivy, and climbing roses, not yet in bloom. The many thick trees gave it a foresty look. A gravel path lead to a door made of a polished dark wood, with a frosted glass window. At the edge of the yard, perpendicular to the street, was a sign, carved with ornamental leaves and flowers, that said, "Sheryl Haring, youth counselor." Definitely a wrong address. Frilly curtains were pulled across the windows. Was it just Gen's imagination, or was someone peeking though the curtains on the right?
Out of curiosity, Gen decided to take a peek inside, since it was a business, and not a private residence. He pushed in the unlocked door, ignoring a feeling that he should be going back home. The room beyond was covered in green wallpaper, with a pattern of curling vines. The wall to wall carpet was thick, soft, and green, and there were two plush Victorian sofas on either side of the room. A soft light came from a couple of wall-mounted lights made to look like lanterns. Two closed doors similar to the one Gen had just entered through led to either side of the house. There was an ugly, droopy potted plant in the corner, with a large pink flower. Its sickly sweet scent filled the room.
Two women sat across from one another, one on each sofa. The first, sitting on the right, was short and plump, with a broad smile, rosy, wrinkled cheeks, and beady eyes twinkling with humor. She wore a gray and blue flowered dress, and carried a clipboard. She looked up as Gen entered, a pen tucked behind one ear. The second was Gen's mother. Or at least a woman who looked exactly like Gen's mother. This woman's hair reached almost to her waist, while Gen's mother had long since cut her hair short. She wore a red dress and soft brown gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat was pulled over her eyes, hiding them. She smiled, exactly the way she would if pleasantly surprised, and rested her head in the palm of her hand.
"Welcome," said the woman with the clipboard to a bewildered Gen. "We've been waiting for you."
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Darkness
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School ended without anything happening. That's what worried Kim. After last night, for nothing to happen today just rattled her. And Gen was missing, too. Mrs. Wightman said he only had a cold, but Kim was still concerned. What if someone was out there, plotting, while she sat in class, in the dark?
Nagainamon waited outside, keeping watch. Or, to Kim's uniquely shrewd pattern of guesswork, more likely sleeping. The time spent with Nagainamon after the Candlemon attack had been awkward, with both parties probing each other, trying to get used to one another's presence. But if Kim had to admit one thing that night, it was that she didn't know how to behave after a happy ending.
Also mentioned that night was this- Kim's father hadn't woken up through any of that racket.
Kim walked home. When no one was looking, Nagainamon walked beside her. They enjoyed a quiet, pensive moment, filled only with small sounds. Kim's shoes tapped on the sidewalk, and her clothes and hair rustled. Nagainamon's scales clinked subtly, with a different tone for each individual joint. Since it was spring, birds called out in loneliness. Kim looked sideways at the blue dragon Digimon. The fulfillment of her every wish and dream. No, that wasn't right at all. She had dreamed other things, before Digimon. What had she wished for then?
The cracking sound of tires on pavement crawled from behind. Kim nudged Nagainamon with her foot, whispering for her to hide. She looked at the driver, and saw it was too late. It was a single man in a blue-green SUV, wearing a necktie but no coat, and he had seen them. He wobbled, and, Kim wasn't sure, but this was what it looked like, fell over while clutching the wheel. The car turned with a screech and accelerated alarmingly. Kim jumped out of the way as the front wheels hit the curb, and the car flipped over onto the grass. The windows cracked, the doors bent, and the alarm turned on.
Kim was stunned for a second, but caught herself. She yanked on the broken door, but it didn't even move an inch. The man inside was handing upside down, unconscious, sliding out of his seatbelt. His forehead and cheek were bent; a faint smear of blood showed where he had bashed against the steering wheel. Where were the airbags? Kim immediately suspected an attempted murder, but accused herself of paranoia almost as quickly. She pulled a few more times at the door, before Nagainamon pushed her aside.
"Let me handle this. Electron Stream!" The words this time didn't seem to have the same resonance. Nagainamon's pack whirred to life, and she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She growled in frustration. "First I can't Digivolve, now I can't even use my attacks! What's happening to me!"
Kim took out her Digivice, and the stack of cards she'd carried around all day, tied with a rubber band. The Digivice's screen was blank; dead. Still, she pulled a card through the slit, shouting, because she wasn't sure it would work without her voice, "Digimodify- Greymon Activate!"
There was a sound like ripping cloth, and a small hole opened beneath Nagainamon. The hole was filled with yellow light. It wasn't nearly as large as the one that had appeared in Kim's backyard, only about the circumference of a baseball, but the Digivice's screen turned on, displaying the 'Transferring' signal. A wraithlike shape hovered for a moment over Nagainamon's head- it looked a lot like Graymon- before vanishing.
Fire kindled in the mouth of the surprised baby dragon. "Nova Blast?" she yelped, as the flames melted the metal car door. Kim pocketed the card, satisfied. Not waiting for things to cool down, she reached past the receding flames, and pulled the upside down man from his now-burnt seatbelt. He popped on the grass, with a small burn from the molten metal. Kim was just glad he wasn't trapped any more.
Nagainamon spat repeatedly, trying to flush the taste of smoke out of her mouth. "That was a… unique experience. I felt like I was possessed for a second there."
"Perhaps you can only use your special abilities near a sufficient source of data," Kim speculated out loud. "The Digivice, too. It's just a lump of plastic without a portal nearby."
Now that the man was part way rescued, it seemed best to put him in professional hands. Kim wondered where she could call for an ambulance. Looking around, she noticed for the first time that people had come out of their houses to inspect the source of the noise. There seemed to be something wrong with them, though. Though they looked at the stricken car, and, indeed, Kim and Nagainamon, they didn't seem to see any of it. One child ran up to the door behind his mother, took one look, and fell on his behind.
Nagainamon observed this, also. "People seem to go into a trance when they see me. It's been happening all day. Afterward, they make no mention of me, as if I wasn't there."
"Very weird. That didn't happen to me."
"We'd better leave. The man will have all the help he needs once the people here snap out of it."
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Kim got home, went into her room. Nagainamon came in, too. Kim turned on some techno music, and tried to do her homework. She soon realized that the unpleasantness of World War I atrocities didn't sooth the unpleasantness of what had just happened. She turned on her computer, planning on talking about it to her distant, faceless friends. She changed her mind before the page even finished loading. Finally, she spoke her worries to Nagainamon, who had been dosing on the oasis.
"Nagainamon… it was probably the way people go… out of it around you, that made the guy in the car crash. You almost killed a guy, just by… being there.
Nagainamon opened one eye, and growled. "You don't have to rub it in."
"I'm not blaming you. I'm just… I dunno, just gettin' a little angsty, I guess." Kim hung her head, and sat down hard on the carpet. "But I've got an excuse, 'cause the one thing I've dreamed of for two years turns out to be… well, I don't want you to have to worry about causing a crash just by walking outside."
Snorting once, Nagainamon rolled onto her back. "Spare me. I flew across a street once and nothing happened. The drivers could still keep their eyes on the road, just not on me. That crash was orchestrated by someone else."
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