Chapter Fourteen

Digital Encounter

Back at Kim's house, all seemed quiet. A movie was on in the living room casting a small glow on the dim room, and Allen and Honey were sitting together on the couch. Honey was holding Allen's hand reassuringly. When he heard the door open, Allen practically jumped off the couch. Honey started too, at his movement. "Kim! Where were you! You must not leave the house all of a sudden like that- Christine and I were scared to death!"

Kim didn't answer his question; she turned her cheek and pouted. "I'm Kimiko. And," she pointed a finger at Honey. "Where had she been all this time?"

"What are you-?" Honey began, looking vaguely confused.

"She's been with me. She's been a real comfort," Allen assured Kim.

Kim folded her arms. "Come on, Gen," she urged.

Atriamon and Kisakidramon were waiting just outside, in all their glory. Gen looked at them doubtfully. "Will you… be okay, outside?"

Kisakidramon nodded. "Don't patronize me," she groaned. As if to make a point, she flew behind the house.

"I'll be fine," Atriamon agreed. Reluctantly, Gen closed the door behind him.

"Promise me you'll never scare me like that again," Allen pressed.

Kim met her father's eyes. "What if someone's life depended on it? What if I knew someone was in danger and only I could save him." She had thought about it all day, and decided not to keep the Digimon's reality a secret. But she had to get her dad's trust somehow.

Allen flopped back onto the couch, looking at Kim with a mixture of understanding and… the complete opposite. "I know you're a responsible kid, but I have to know you're safe. If you can find it in you, do your old man a favor, will you?"

"I won't run off unless I absolutely have to," Kim promised. There was a silent moment.

Honey broke the ice. She paused the movie, and turned to Gen. "Who's this? Are you one of Kim's friends?" she asked sweetly. Her inflection reminded Kim of Mrs. Wightman's, but friendlier and less practiced. Kim took it to mean Honey thought of her as only a child.

"I moved here, not many days ago."

Honey grinned at Kim, without getting up from the sofa. "It's good to see you're making new friends, Kimberly."

Kim grimaced. She pointed stiffly at Honey, and glared vengefully down her finger. "My name's Kimiko. And don't forget it!" her voice rang.

Honey looked startled, holding her hands protectively over her breast. Then she relaxed, and laughed. "You have an adorable daughter," she told Allen. "You should be proud of her."

"Who says I'm not?" Allen argued good naturedly. His eyes were half closed in an expression of affection.

Kim shook her head, rubbing the right lens on her goggles. A part of her felt like her dad shouldn't court a woman without Kim's consent. But she reminded herself that she had more important things to worry about, and went to her room.

Gen followed her shyly. He paused, and looked back at the two adults. They had turned the movie back on, and were holding hands again. Both their faces were content and, possibly, in love. "Have fun up there," said Allen, tapping his hand on the arm of the sofa. Gen smiled encouragingly and left them.

Kim was kneeling on her stool, waiting for a webpage to load. "So," she chimed. "What do you know about the internet?"

Gen shrugged, once again marveling at the spectacular room. Visiting the place for a second time, he felt like he was finalizing a long-term agreement. He hadn't expected anything like this to happen when he moved here. "I know what everyone else knows, I think. Maybe… a few things other people don't know."

"Perfect."

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The man who had dragged Raul to the torture chamber wore a stained white trench coat. Raul saw this with indignation; had the Snake intended to keep the coat as a trophy? The first thing he did after getting his bearings was take the coat back and put it on. Considering the Snake's untimely death, the coat was stiff with dried blood. But Raul always wore it when on business, and he felt more at home as soon as his back was covered. While he was at it, Raul also claimed his gear, and the contents of the corpse's own pockets- a gun, a few bandages, and a spool of wire. He didn't think there was anything odd about doing so.

Feeling there was little reason to stick around until someone else showed up to interrogate him, Raul left the room. The door opened into a small, secretive street, just wide enough that it couldn't be described as an alley, but it was a close thing. None of the buildings had doors, or very many windows. Night had fallen while Raul was unconscious, and visibility in the tight space was almost nil. He weighed the risk of remaining in the torture chamber against the risk of stepping into blindness.

There was one source of light. It came from out of sight, around a corner, and was too faint to be a streetlamp, but too strong to be stray light from a window. The way it refracted around the edges, becoming a rainbow, reminded Raul suspiciously of the light that was his last memory after being shot.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to approach the light or not, but it beat either of his other options. To be safe, he took a shoe from the nearest corpse and chucked it into the shadows. When this brought no reaction, and the shoe bounced as expected, Raul darted to the corner and peeked unobtrusively around. He could see light coming from a shop on the other side of a street. Closer still, in a short alley, a broken, unpainted picket fence created a spot concealed from the road. Lying cozily in this spot was a large white dog.

No, it wasn't a dog, but a stocky, shaggy foal. Nothing like a dog, really… But Raul hadn't expected a foal in the middle of a city. If Raul had known the first thing about horses, he would have thought it strange that this one had cloven hooves. More immediately obvious was that this foal was the source of the light Raul had seen from the door. It's whole body glowed, making its already spotlessly white coat seem even bolder, and distorting its facial features so that they looked strangely un-horselike. Its hair and skin may have even been faintly transparent, for the slight outline of a skeleton was visible within it- not nearly enough to be outright frightening, though. It gave off a strange feeling that Raul couldn't put his finger on.

His first impulse was to leave, quickly and silently. He didn't believe what he was seeing; even if he did, it was threatening in its strangeness, and he didn't want it to have anything to do with him. But as he watched, the foal stirred. Its ears twitched, and it wagged its head slightly. It carefully unbuckled its legs and stood up. Raul found himself waiting for what it would do. It opened its eyes- black, glistening, flawless- and look at him.

Raul's legs pulled him backwards, while his eyes remained locked with the foal's. It watched him for a second, as he tripped over a small crack in the pavement. After a few moments it, somehow satisfied, trotted towards Raul. Its movements seemed slightly exaggerated, and hoof prints glowed for a few seconds wherever it stepped.

The foal jerked its head sharply down. A glassy segmented horn unfolded from its forehead, like an antenna. The foal was close now, and Raul flinched away from the tip of the horn. The next moment, the horn was sticking through his chest. He almost didn't notice it at first, because it felt like nothing but a warm breeze. A bright green glow surrounded the horn where it touched Raul.

"Do not be afraid," said the foal. The voice was clear, firm, and female. What it wasn't was horselike. The foal's mouth didn't move; Raul looked frantically around the alley for the speaker.

A clump of dark green lines pulsed briefly through the horn, from Raul to the foal. "You are still afraid," the voice pointed out. It sounded concerned, and minutely less steady the second time.

Raul pulled away. The foal lurched forward with him. "T-that thing's in me!" he shrieked.

The foal suddenly slid its horn out of Raul, and wheeled toward the end of the road. A few drops of dark green liquid rolled off of its horn. It snorted, and the colored lights around it swirled. Then it galloped away, its light fading into the darkness with distance. "If I hadn't come here in time, you would be dead," the voice spoke loudly, though it didn't so much as shout.

When it was gone, Raul groaned and gritted his teeth. For the first time in memory, his body didn't hurt, and his mind was trying to compensate for the void. He ground his wrist into his forehead, yelling, "What the ----!" at the spot where the light disappeared. For many minutes, Raul didn't get up.

Eventually he managed to feel better, once his back began to ache from lying on the pavement. Besides, he remembered someone saying that if you took something like LSD only once, and were clean for the next ten years, you could still have a relapse at the worst moment. Knowing all about 'worst moments', Raul had listened to the warning and never taken the chemicals. But he had gotten really trashed with Thirteen last night. The point was the horse was a hallucination.

Raul stood up, and leaned against the wall. "That was you, Med, right?" he called, displaying a small smirk. No one answered. "Come on out here dude," he added half-heartedly. He shrugged.

Shoving all that had happened to the back of his mind, Raul wondered where he was. He stepped onto the street he had already glimpsed. According to the street sign, Raul was pretty far from 'home'. He checked his pockets out of habit, but knew already that he didn't have any money for a bus.

A man in a dark gray windbreaker jogged down the street. He was stopped by a slightly shabby, uncertain looking fellow. The fellow screwed up his face, almost theatrically, and said laboriously, "Do you… nanra... know… where…" Relatively quickly, he rattled off a street name. The jogger shook his head and ran on.

The man, apparently lost, sighed dramatically. "Goshinpainaku…" Raul waited for him to walk by the alley. This guy didn't sound like he spoke English, meaning he'd have a hard time complaining about a few small thefts.

He wandered closer. Checking to make sure no one else was around, Raul reached out and pulled the man into the alley.

"Maro-!"

Without a word, Raul pressed the guy into the wall, and pulled out his pockets. He heard a few clinks, and a thud. Raul scooped up everything that had fallen, and ran off.

For a second the man was dazed, wondering what had hit him. Then he swore, and ran after the thief.

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