26) Into the Void
They made their way through Guilmon's bore, Kenta was having the most difficulty as he was carrying Takato's banner. The portal looked bright only in contrast to the surrounding darkness. Once through, there was enough room to stand, and it was like walking on a transparent floor.
All around them swirled carats, plus and minus signs, asterisks, square and curly brackets, greater than arrows - all the symbols used in C/C++ and various scripting languages. These seemed to be constantly popping in and out of view. It looked like being underwater in a lake to depths where the last of the sunlight reached. Ahead of them, instead of above, was a patch of brighter green, as the Sun would appear from a great enough depth.
One instant, they seemed to be walking normally, the next it was as if gravity was suddenly switched off.
"Where did the ground go?!", Kenta asked.
"It feels weird", Kazu agreed.
"We're not falling", Jen observed, "so we should be OK".
"Don't worry", Impmon told them. "It's just a transition zone".
"Which way do we go?", Takato asked.
"It makes no difference", Renamon told him.
"You don't know? Impmon? Leomon?"
"Space and time are meaningless here", Impmon informed them.
"I think we should go that way", as Juri pointed.
Gravity returned with a vengeance, and they were falling through a featureless whiteness, now as bright as day in contrast to the darkness of the transition zone. They broke through the "cloud deck", and were looking at a net of fine, blue filaments. If they hit that, it would slice them to ribbons, yet they felt nothing as they passed through it.
A light yellow-green plane lay below, showing details that gave it the vague look of a circuit board.
"Frontier dead ahead", Impmon announced.
Takato noticed a dark spot appear, and wondered what it might be. He screamed in terror as he realized it was his own shadow. He put up his arms, but barely felt his passing through the apparently solid plane. There were more of these planes below it, these being a much darker shade of green.
"The bread! The bread!", Guilmon called out. Takato's backpack had come undone, scattering all the bread. Oh well, some other lucky digimon would eventually find it, where ever it may come down.
"How deep are we going to fall?!", Takato called out.
He had his answer as they appeared above a desert wilderness. One thing they all noticed was the lack of any sort of development, no cities, towns, villages, or farms were seen. Just a vast expanse of varying shades of brown. Koichi though that strange: at this altitude, he should have seen something...
They came down, hit the soft sand, and made craters nearly as deep as they were tall. Koichi let a hand full run through his fingers. He sensed not the slightest trace of moisture. As he stood, Renamon offered her paw, and helped him out. Leomon was doing the same for Juri. Takato was boosting Guilmon out of the double crater they'd made. Then Guilmon helped Takato out.
Jen, Kazu, and Kenta were climbing out of their craters.
Koichi looked around, seeing not the slightest trace of vegetation.
"Not what I imagined it to be", Jen said.
"How did you imagine the Digital World?", Terriermon asked.
"I dunnow, but Arizona or New Mexico wasn't it". It did look like the deserts of New Mexico: vast expanse of sand, studded with mesas.
"Takato, we lost all the bread", Guilmon was complaining.
"I know, all Dad's hard work... Sorry 'bout that", Takato replied sheepishly.
"Did we fall all the way from there?", Kazu asked.
"It's too high", Juri said.
"It's way high... I thought for sure we were gonners", Kenta said, "and we're not even hurt".
"What's going on up there?", Takato asked Koichi, who was looking at something that dominated the sky. "What is that?"
"It's the Material World Sphere", Impmon explained, "how the Material World looks from our side of the connections".
"That's our world?", Koichi asked. "If that's so, then how come we can see the Material World from here, but we can't see the Digital World back home?"
"Look closer", Impmon told him.
Then he began to notice: there was not a trace of cloud cover to be seen. A whole hemisphere with no cloud cover, no sign of weather, no storm systems. Not too damn likely. He focused on the Japanese islands, the coast of Siberia, and Sakhalin Island to the north. It all had a vaguely grainy look to it. Surely there would be some detail? Even if this were a L.E.O., then at least Tokyo should be visible?
The biggest difference were the silver "funnels" from which projected pink streams of light. Given their size relative to the rest of the sphere, these features would be a couple thousand miles in diameter if they really existed on Earth.
"That is a representation of the Material World, but not the actual planet Earth", Impmon was explaining. "We aren't in orbit; we never really left Earth. We entered the Digital World of pure data".
"So our folks aren't waiting for us up there?"
"No"
"What's with those lights?"
"Those are data streams coming from and going to systems located in the Material World..."
"Be certain you avoid them", Leomon interrupted. "If you get caught in one of those streams, there's no telling where you might wind up..."
"YAH-HOO!", they were startled by a loud cry. It was Takato.
"Who are you yelling at?", Guilmon asked.
"No one", he explained, "it's so vast, don't you just want to yell?"
Koichi understood: these kids had never lived anywhere other than the big city. They might go to the park, or on camping trips, but they were seldom out of sight and sound of life in a big city. This vastness, this quiet, the uninterrupted vistas, it was all new to them.
"It's so high up and far away", Juri was saying, "are we stuck here forever? How will we ever get back?"
"Juri, why so gloomy?", Takato asked. "Of course we'll get back! Look at Renamon, Leomon and Impmon: they were here, and they went to the Material World, didn't they?"
"That's true", they all agreed.
"Moumentai!"
"We came here for a purpose: to find Calumon...", Takato announced.
"First, let's take pictures!", Kenta announced. He and Kazu had planted Takato's "Tamers" banner. "To commemorate this historic moment: one small step for mankind, one giant leap for us", he said, mangling that famous saying even worse than did Neil Armstrong.
There were various poses - serious to silly - and combinations of Tamers and digimon photographed gathered around the banner they'd planted like the flag of a conquistador claiming a new land for his king.
Kenta exclaimed, "there's nothing here?!"
"Let me see", Jen requested. He clicked through the pictures. "They took", he said, "but are severely pixilated".
"That's a digital camera", Impmon pointed out, "and it's trying to digitize images that are already digital. It's digitizing twice".
"So our electronics don't work?"
Koichi tried Yamaki's hand held: "It won't connect", he said, "Looks like we're completely on our own".
"Then we really are stuck?", Juri asked, very worried now.
"T'hell with that!", Takato exclaimed. "We came for a reason..."
"OK, so where do we begin?", Kazu asked.
"Well... ummmmm...", Takato began.
"Hey guys!", Koichi called out, rescuing him. "It looks like an antenna farm just over there", he pointed.
"He's right", Jen agreed, "those do look like antennae".
"Then someone must live there", Takato concluded.
"There's certain to be regular inspections", Koichi explained, "a maintenance facility of some sort. There's for sure a service drive that'll lead to a highway or at least a main two-laner that will lead to a town. It's a good place to start. Maybe we'll meet someone who knows about Calumon? Or can point us in the right direction?".
They set off in the direction of the parabolic dish antennae. All but Kenta and Kazu walked along in silence, as there wouldn't be anything to discuss until they arrived.
"From Shinjuku to Ikebukuro...", Kazu was complaining.
"Shinjuku, Shin-Okubo, Takadonobaba, Mejiro, Ikebukuro...", Kenta added.
"Stop counting", Kazu replied.
"Guys", Koichi was explaining, "things look closer than they really are in the desert. It's something you'll just have to get used to..."
"I'm dead!", Kazu announced, as he dropped to the ground in an emo display of over dramatization.
"Me too!", Kenta agreed.
The Frontier
Makuramon was flying across the yellow-green plane. In a spherical bird cage, he carried Calumon. He was pleased with himself: mission accomplished, and he expected great rewards for delivering to his God that which he was sent to recover. The Digital World had been robbed, and now the digimon God was going to set everything right.
That was, until he tried to cross the Frontier. For some reason, Calumon's cage got stuck by its base, leaving Makuramon hanging by one hand. He was figuring out how to free the cage when he saw it: bright white balls of light, seemingly meandering at random, drifting all around them.
"It... it rejects me?", Makuramon asked himself as he felt something prying his fingers from the handle. "I shall resort to my God's power". Too late, his grip failed, and he dropped, leaving Calumon behind.
"Pretty, culu?", he commented to himself.
Calumon watched the "lights" resolve themselves into what looked a lot like white owls. They had black eyes, and a long plume extended from the tops of their heads that were longer than their entire bodies. They flew around the cage, making a high pitched chittering sound.
"I want to play, culu?"
Whatever they did, Calumon found he could pass, effortlessly, through the bars of the cage.
"I'm out, culu?! I'm out, culu?!", he said as he glided into the Digital World to a soft landing.
The Desert Zone
"Guys?", Juri called out. "I think we made a mistake?", as she pointed to a mesa.
"Rocks! They weren't antennae!", Kazu confirmed.
"From a distance, they sure did look just like antennae", Koichi said. "Damn: I saw just what I wanted to see, not what was really there... Sorry guys".
"I wonder if these are natural formations, or if someone carved the mesas?", Jen asked.
"Most likely natural", Leomon speculated. "It looks like the data from which it was created".
"Most likely the specs for a VLA radio telescope", Impmon added. "See? They're arranged in regular rows and columns".
"How far do they go?", Juri asked.
"As long as we're here, how about a lunch break?", Koichi announced.
"Takato lost all the bread", Guilmon reminded him.
"I have some cookies", Juri offered.
"How about MREs instead", Kazu offered. He and Kenta had thought to visit a survival store to pick up packets of MREs. These in their own self-heating packets. Their backpacks were fully stocked with enough to last both humans and digimon a good long while.
"Glad you two thought of it", Koichi agreed. This just might make up for all the whining they'd already done, and undoubtedly would do in the future.
"Yeah, we sure are!", Takato agreed.
"Thank you", Guilmon added.
"W-w-w-what's... that!", Kenta screamed. He and Kazu began to run from the couple dozen or so pink, somewhat off-round balls that were being swept before the wind down the shallow U-shaped valley where they'd stopped for their lunch break.
Renamon caught the both of them by the shirt collars: "Calm down, they're just dust packets, made up of old, discarded data. They're harmless if you don't touch them".
They calmed down and sighed with relief.
"It's what comes next that should concern you", she added.
"What's coming?!", they both asked. As soon as they did so, the daylight disappeared at once.
"The night", Renamon completed that thought.
"What just happened here?", Kazu asked.
"It's like she said: it's night", Jen explained.
"No evening..."
"Morning, noon, night: that's just so analog", Impmon explained. "This is a digital world: one or zero, on or off, yes or no, day or night".
"Insta-night", Kenta said, amazed.
"And daybreak will some just as suddenly", Leomon added.
"What the hell was that!", Juri called out, pointing towards a nearby mesa. At first they saw nothing.
"There!", Jen called out. They all saw it, a flash of orange against the darkness.
"A digimon?", Juri asked.
Koichi was running the "Ident" function:
Meramon
Anthroform fire digimon
Champion
His main attack is Magma Bomb
It was just this attack he launched at them. They scattered, fleeing the red hot Magma Bombs.
"Pyro Sphere!", Guilmon retaliated, but he was too far away. His attack too slow, as Meramon dodged easily.
Meramon leaped from the mesa, landed right in front of Guilmon: "Burning Fist!". He dropped Guilmon with a single punch.
"Guilmon!", Takato called out. He ran to his partner's side.
"You OK?".
"I'll be fine", Guilmon reassured.
"Super Evolution...", Koichi was scanning the card...
"Fist of the Beast King!", Leomon struck first from above. This flattened Meramon, taking the fight out of him.
"What are such powerful ones doing here?!", he asked as a hand reached above the smoke filled crater Leomon's attack made. As the smoke cleared, Meramon's form changed from fire to skin that was marked with patterns of orange and yellow, suggesting flames.
"Go on... load my data... Do with me what you will", he said in resignation.
"Why did you attack us?", Koichi asked. "Are you working for the Deva? Did you do it on their orders?"
"Deva?", Meramon asked. "You...", he began, "...aren't digimon?"
"No, I'm human..."
"Outworlders? I never expected to be meeting Outworlders. You're really from the Material World?"
"That's right, we are. Are you working for the Deva?", Koichi asked again.
"Deva? I don't know any Deva".
Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, Meramon proved trust worthy. They were sitting in a circle.
"Have you seen this digimon?", Takato asked, showing the drawing he did. "His name is Calumon".
"No, I can't say I have", Meramon studied the drawing. "I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance"
"How about this one?", as he showed the picture of the monkey Deva.
"No, not that one either..."
"How about him as a partner?", Kazu asked Kenta.
"He's strong and all that, but the heat and fire could be problematic", Kenta objected.
"I suppose..."
"So you're really from the Material World?", Meramon asked again. "These days, it's usually the other way around. It seems so close", Meramon reached skyward. "Like I can almost touch it, but I can't. If only I could find a way".
"Why do digimon want to go to the Material World?", Jen asked.
"This world is all fucked up", Meramon explained. "Look around you: haven't you noticed how lifeless everything appears? Something is slowly but surely destroying our world. We don't know what it is, and our Sovereign refuse to tell us anything. We can't even evolve, and we don't know why... I want to live, and I don't think I will do that for much longer if I can't escape to the Material World".
The Frontier
Ruki was nearing the end of her journey, as she fought her way through the final plane of the Frontier. Ruki hung by her ankles, above a bleak landscape far below. "Story of my life", she said.
"WHYYYYYY!", she called out as she plummeted to what she figured would be a certain - and messy - death.
The Desert Zone
"A shooting star?", Takato asked himself, as he watched the streak of light cross the Material World Sphere.
"Can't sleep either?", Jen had heard.
"I wonder, why do digimon fight and load?", Takato asked.
"They don't know any different way of life... like our partners, before they came to the Material World"
"That's gotta be tough".
Takato reached for Guilmon, but the yellow eye opened even before he'd touched him: "It's coming!", he announced. Renamon headed for the top of the nearest mesa. The rest of the digimon were as suddenly awake as well.
"What...", Takato asked.
Renamon spotted it: a rising dust cloud on the horizon. They finally heard something like distant thunder. Jen had his digivice out:
Jagamon
Plant digimon, Ultimate
They migrate in large herds
"Herds?", Takato asked, "as in stampede?!"
"They're headed our way!", Renamon called out. "We need to get out of here, and fast!"
She went to collect Koichi, get him to safety higher on the hillside. Leomon did the same for Juri, Impmon helped Kenta and Kazu, Guilmon and Jen were holding onto Takato as the herd of Jagamon thundered past. They came with a distressing rapidity. Finally, Guilmon and Jen had Takato up on the ledge.
"Look there!", Juri called out, pointing. "Meramon!"
"Magma Bomb!", he launched the fireballs into the herd. The herd responded by splitting, one branch swept Meramon away, trampling him, and he burst into data.
"How awful!", Juri called out.
"It couldn't be helped", Renamon said with a startling indifference.
"It couldn't be helped?", Koichi asked.
"It's the Law of the Digital World; it couldn't be helped", she explained.
"Still, that wasn't very nice..."
"Koichi", Impmon said, "do you know who made the Law of the Digital World?"
"No..."
"It was you humans! If you wanted the Law to be different, then you should have written the core digimon program differently. Quite frankly, I find it hypocritical to be complaining about the end results", he admonished.
The next morning, Kazu got up declaring: "I slept great". Kenta wasn't up yet: "Hey, sleepy-head, wake up!", as he nudged his companion awake.
"What are they doing down there?", Kenta asked.
"It looks different than it did last night", Kazu noticed.
"It does, doesn't it?"
They were in the midst of small green seedlings they were sure weren't there last night. As they watched, the two leaves of each seedling began to wiggle on their own with no breeze to cause this.
"What is this?", Kazu asked as he pulled up a "seedling". It didn't come up easily, and it was attached to something much bigger than the first rootlets he expected. The "seedling", instead, turned out be a tail belonging to a critter that looked like it was constructed from clay and rock. It was about the same size and shape as a prairie dog.
Below, on the valley floor, Impmon, Takato, Jen, Koichi, Juri, and their partners were putting the finishing touches on a memorial for Meramon. Takato added a crude drawing he'd done, placing a rock to hold it in place.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!", came the pleading of an unfamiliar voice from further up the hillside. "Why don't you leave me alone?!"
Kenta and Kazu were tormenting the strange critter. Kazu was pulling its tail, while Kenta pulled on its ears. Impmon turned and went up the hill: "You have a lot of chutzpah to ask that of us after what you and your friends did to us last night!", he accused.
"Last night?", Kenta asked.
"These things attacked us in a herd last night...", Impmon explained.
"And Meramon was...", Juri started.
"We were fighting. We couldn't help that", Jagamon explained.
"Excuse me!", she replied sarcastically.
"It was Meramon who challenged them first. Besides, he was encroaching on their territory", Renamon explained.
"Let's not blame them", Jen added. "Takato, why don't you ask him about Calumon?".
"Oh yeah", he brought out his drawing. "Take a look at this: have you seen a digimon who looks like this?"
Jagamon was relieved that his tormentors were leaving him alone: "Hmmmmm...", he said.
"How about this one?", he showed the drawing of the monkey Deva.
"Ahhhh...", with that, the rest on the Jagamon stuck their heads up: "Seen it! Seen it! Seen it!" they announced in a chorus.
"You're sure you've seen him?", Takato asked.
"Well, where did you see him?", Jen added.
They answered in "Hmmmm's", and "Ahhhh's", not very helpful.
"They say they've seen Makuramon, but not Calumon, there's something wrong with that. Can we even trust them?", Juri asked.
"No offense meant, but you wouldn't be lying to us, would you?", Koichi challenged.
"Why would we?", he replied, "we have no reason to lie".
Takato showed him the picture once again: "You sure you've seen him? Which way did he go?"
The Jagamon stood up on its stubby hind legs, just like a prairie dog: "You're gonna tell us, aren't you?", Takato encouraged.
"That way! That way! That way!", they all announced, all pointing in the same direction.
"I still don't like it", Juri was complaining. "We have no reason to believe them".
"There is one explanation", Koichi pointed out, "if Calumon got away from Makuramon, then they wouldn't see them together".
"Could he?", she asked.
"Calumon is a good deal smarter than he lets on. I wouldn't doubt it. Besides, it doesn't really make a difference. If they're lying, we're no worse off than before. If they're telling the truth, then we may be getting closer to locating Calumon... There's just one thing..."
"And that would be?", Jen asked.
"If he escaped, then he's in hiding, and that means he's hiding from us as well as from the digimon God and his minions".
"Moumentai!", Terriermon called out, "if we are meant to find him, then we will find him".
The Frontier
Makuramon rose on a great plume of orange fire towards the Frontier. He was riding a long, skinny dragon, up to where he'd left Calumon. The dragon grabbed the cage with a huge, three fingered paw, but when he opened it, the cage was empty, but otherwise undisturbed.
"Fuck!", Makuramon called out. "Where did he get to?!"