Act 1: Beating Heart

Segment 4: Breakup

Chapter 4-4: Renegade

Title derived from: Renegade by The Anix

You see me grasp for something real, peering through the truth prevails, you only get one try, renegade lies, cyanide thunder ...

Tomonobu Isono stared at his tablet screen. He hadn't moved from his car after returning home for a half-hour. At first he had reported the late March incident in Koto as a chemical spill, but he had quickly followed it up with a highly confidential paper-only message to his superiors.

He couldn't, in good conscience, just let it go. How could he? Not with what he had seen and experienced. He closed his eyes to rest them. Bad mistake. Every time he had, for the last few months, he had seen them. Their white sclera and mouthless faces haunted his nightmares. For months they had stalked him at night and at day. The dark circles and bags under his eyes attested to that.

Tomonobu had been adamant, of course, that he was alright and just had to fix his sleep schedule, but between the details he had sent up the chain and the fact that he genuinely looked terrible, he was being asked repeatedly to take time off work. They were willing to class it as a mental health break and give him a month. He was reluctant to do so.

For two months, he had been waiting on approval to trace the kids. Just the kids, nobody else. The four of them, at least. He didn't know if there were more, but…

He grunted and got out of his car. The warming air was no longer as refreshing as it used to be then. With a tired and unsteady grip, he opened the door to his house. His wife had noticed, of course, but he lied to her, saying it was trouble at work. He told himself, though, that it wasn't a lie at all. It wasn't actually a lie, but it was hardly truth either. After all, he had been asked to leave the case cold until they could get approval to check again.

The department had removed and unracked the servers the day he filed the confidential report for study. They were pristine. Too pristine. Someone had wiped and scrambled the disks in their entirety, somehow. Even if all that he had seen and felt was fake, they were clearly dealing with someone who had remotely accessed these slabs – and just these slabs – and purged all the data.

Tomonobu had reached out, once, to the professor who was affected, an American. Professor Mackenzie had been distraught, and for good reason. It was going to be hard to uproot himself and his daughter. He had noticed as well that there was no indication of a mother in the few family photos, though Brian and his daughter shared many of the same features. He figured adoption was highly unlikely.

"Hubbo? You're home early. Something happen at work again?" asked his wife.

He collapsed into a chair and pulled up his tablet again and re-read the private message. It hadn't even come from his supervisor, but from three levels up – the kind of sender that makes your heart flutter when you see it, no matter the content.

• • • • • • •

Kido Saburou

We retrieved and managed to repair a brief recording from the data centre internals.
[video]
13:40

I didn't think I would have to believe you, but it is on tape.
Mr. Isono, feel free to take the month rest whenever you need it. I've heard from others that you truly do.
And if you really do wish to continue with the investigation… I told you nothing. Nobody told you anything. But you have my personal permission.
13:45

If someone asks, merely say that such things are impossible and a fantasy.
I'm sure you understand the reason for secrecy.
13:48

Of course. Thank you, Sir.
13:49

• • • • • • •

He wasn't sure how to feel about going renegade, but there it was, in his messages, and in his papers today, marked as highly confidential. It was in his briefcase right now, in fact. He considered opening it right then and there, but… highly confidential meant in front of nobody. Not even his family. Not even his colleagues. Perhaps not even his supervisor.

"Nothing major, just wrapped up investigations earlier than usual today." He considered opening a can of beer but thought better of it. It made his head hurt anyway.

After a long silence passed, he looked up from the armchair. His wife had an expression of concern on her face. "You were working late, now it's early." She sat in the armchair that was next to his. "Are you sure you don't need another break? You barely seemed to rest over the last holiday week."

He massaged his forehead with the heels of his palms. "I just have some tough cases to crack. It's been very engrossing, so I haven't been able to stop thinking about them." It was true enough. "I have to admit, though, I've been offered another month off to take a mental health break. I might accept it."

"You should, you've been tossing and turning in bed ever since spring started."

He sighed. "Sure."

His wife smiled and got back up to return to the stovetop. "Ah, you always did get so involved with your work. I'm glad you still think about your health, though."

He couldn't bring himself to respond. He pulled up his phone. He had pulled the kids' information after requesting contact details from Tokyo Metro for IC accounts. They turned out to all be from various districts in Sumida and attended the same senior high school – or at least, they had. They had graduated earlier that year, of course, but they were all still in Tokyo.

Tomonobu didn't know how long that would last. Furthering an in-person investigation would be impossible. He had to wait on permission to trace their digital footprint instead, and since they were still younger than 20, that was proving to be incredibly hard, even with the footage pulled from the data centre. After all, they had to repair the footage – and even then, they were only able to get a few seconds worth of the black substance seemingly crawling over the floor, followed by one of those creatures, before the data became so grainy and corrupted that it was impossible to piece together again.

If only the tracking apps on his phone had worked while he had been in there. He remembered the kids again, and the beasts that were with them. They looked too much like fictional things he'd already seen.

Wasn't one of them called Aquilamon? He shook his head and poked it into his tablet's search bar. Surely he had misheard. The curved horns and eagle-like feather patterns perfectly matched the drawing that came up. He put his tablet away. That one and the wolf-like beast stuck out in his memory the most.

Surely all of this was just a dream inside a dream – just a terrible, half-lucid dream, where he only had control over himself and nothing else around him. He hoped it was. He could still sense the moist, elongated fingers gripping his wrists and neck as the alien beings had dragged him around.

He opened the messaging app on his phone and stared at it, then put it away. Contacting the kids directly now would do him no good, nor would contacting their parents help. The kids would know quickly that he had lied to them. Having just had his own son graduate high school and move out a few years ago, he knew full well what teenagers were like. Any further investigation would have to be indirect.

He got up and cracked open a bottle of tea. Perhaps it was best he put the investigation down for now and take a month off. But if he did – wouldn't the opportunity to investigate slip away? The professor had mentioned, after all, that he was going to shelve the project indefinitely. What if he just deleted it? Then all traces of it would be lost.

He stood there, next to the fridge, deep in thought. His wife continued to move about the kitchen as possibilities branched and branched in his head. He paced away suddenly, back to his tablet. The kids might find it suspicious, but the professor… the professor had plenty of reason to talk. It would be a good starting point. Even if just to monitor what he was doing and why he might have been targeted like this.

"No, mom, I'm fine," Takaharu laughed. "Yes, I miss you. I miss all of you, and Tailmon. Lomamon does too." Lomamon chewed on a shrimp-flavoured potato chip. Takaharu got one of these calls every weekend, since he was so often too busy to bother taking the train home. "The midterms are… eh. They're alright. It's not that much harder than high school, yet." Aki was clearly talking a lot. "Ha! I had to rush once. Lomamon? No, my roommates haven't seen it yet. I've been making sure of that. Yes, I get enough exercise. Trust me." He sat down in his chair. "Mom! I have to study! I don't have time to look for a girlfriend right now, trust me!" Lomamon stifled a laugh. He was bugged this every month. He had actually been looking, but he hadn't found any success, still. Takaharu suddenly pointed the phone screen at Lomamon. "Hey, say hi to Izumi, eh?" He had put the call on speaker phone.

Lomamon waved with a greasy paw. "Hey everyone!"

"Oh my goodness, Lomamon, you don't stop eating," Aki remarked.

"Takaharu keeps buying these! They're delicious," Lomamon admitted.

"Yeah, because you keep asking for them!" Takaharu complained.

"They're good!"

Izumi spoke up, "Lomamon, do you get bored sometimes, though? It's been a while. Not much has happened."

It waved the thought away. "Nah, nah. Fighting and all that was interesting, but I just wanna sit back and relax, you know?" It munched on another chip. "But I gotta say, the area around here is kinda boring. Nothing like Tokyo."

"Yeah, I saw it online. It's very quiet," replied Aki.

"You're telling me! It's super quiet!" It swallowed.

"By the way, Lomamon, Takaharu, have you or any of the other Tamers noticed anything recently?" Izumi asked.

"Like another Junction? Nah, nothing like that," replied Lomamon.

Takaharu turned the phone back to him. "It's a little boring, but I have enough to worry about without any of that, really."

"Hey, bro, your birthday is coming up soon," Izumi reminded. "Anything in mind?"

"Right! And it's a Friday. Hey, why don't I visit that weekend? I think I can. Let me check…" He flipped through his notebook of due dates and exams. "Uh, I think I should be okay to go then. I can leave in the afternoon and be there before dinner?"

"Yay!" Izumi cheered. "Should I get you anything though?"

He thought about it for a while. "Nah, I'm good."

"Not even another booster pack?" she taunted.

"Eh…" Takaharu tapped a pen on the table. "Okay, maybe."

Falcomon was staring intently at something on the family's laptop. "Yuuka?"

"Hm?"

"Come here, I have something I want to ask." Yuuka rose from her bedroom chair and walked over to the dinner table where Falcomon was working. "Can I reference something from this other sheet here?"

"Yeah, of course. Wait. Oh, I see what you're trying to do."

"It's this function, right? Cross-lookup?"

"Yep."

"Okay, I just wanted to be sure I read this correctly." Falcomon continued working away at the spreadsheet. Yuuka watched in amazement. It had said that once upon a time it had done accounting like this. First, Yuuka was surprised at all that Digimon had accounting. Most of them had admitted as well to having a significant currency balance, although none of them could use it. Only Amedramon and Monodramon didn't, because Amedramon had said it was a travelling nomad with a few others, and Monodramon preferred to be paid in food and shelter.

Second, she was amazed it was so skilled at using spreadsheeting software. Digimon seemed to learn at incredible speed. They had all admitted, in fact, that the language they were using with them wasn't even their native language. So how did they learn so quickly? None of them knew.

Yuuka imagined their society to look and feel something like the human age a few centuries ago, although they had all said their towns and cities were much smaller. Perhaps the imagery still worked. Speaking of which… "Hey Falcomon?"

"Yes?"

"Remember that time Gabumon and Hawkmon were discussing those human structures popping up in the Digital World?"

"What about them?"

She paused. Right, she also got up to get a glass of water. She fetched an empty one from a cupboard and filled it from a jug. "How long would they be around for?"

Falcomon shrugged. "It was completely random. Some of them would fade in partially, like they were partially built, and then disappear overnight. Others would stick around for weeks. But they all disappeared in the end."

"And how many of them were there?"

"They used to be super rare. You could barely find them. You were lucky if you did. We used to say they were messages from another universe." It took a sip of water itself. "Maybe they still are, who knows, but they were good luck to find then."

"Oh?"

"And then after a while every city and some towns started getting one. Although they'd still pop in and out of existence. It was rather bizarre."

"Did you ever see anything you recognize? Other than the temple gates."

Falcomon thought for a while. "I think I've seen the road signs. Those happen a lot. Maybe some trees or plants we didn't recognize. Shop signs. Park features. Just about anything from the Human World. The small stuff was the most common, though."

"I see." Yuuka deliberated over it. It was strange. If things from the Human World could be re-assembled in the Digital World… "Why haven't we seen anything going the other way?"

Falcomon shrugged and stared at a line of formula, then tapped it away and rewrote it. "Could just be that way." It dragged the cell around. "I realize that's not a very satisfying answer," it admitted, "but I don't know at all." It looked up from its laptop at Yuuka. "Why did this come up?"

Yuuka shook her head. "No reason. I just got reminded about it when I saw you working."

"Though, I should add, occasionally we even get devices like these ending up over there." Falcomon pointed at the laptop. "They work, too!"

"They work?!"

"Yeah! Some of them come with these long cords," Falcomon motioned to the power cord, "but we never needed them. These are for power, right?"

"Right."

"I guess the Digital World can just power them on their own."

"Huh." The Digital World made less and less sense the more Falcomon talked about it. Perhaps they should go see if for themselves. Although, if the Junctions could close suddenly and without warning… perhaps they shouldn't. What if they got stuck on the other side? Still. Yuuka couldn't shake the curiosity.

Gabumon slumped on the couch. Two months. Two months of… nothing. It was boring. It was even longing for the time that Satsuki was in school, when they had something to talk about, and it could help her study. Satsuki had Kazuhiko, sure, but Gabumon had a harder time getting along with Monodramon. It was a rather aggressive and loud Digimon, and not at all what Gabumon wanted to live with. It sighed.

"Gabumon, something the matter?" she asked. She was making food for the two of them. Makoto was away for university.

"I'm bored."

"Bored, huh?"

"Yeah. I have nothing to do, and I hate it."

"What did you do in the Digital World before you came here?"

It sat up. "I used to help deliver stuff."

"Like mail?"

"Mail and packages, just like the mail deliverers here."

Satsuki tapped the wooden chopsticks she was holding against the pan. It wasn't like Gabumon could just do that again. Not here. Not now, anyway. In some future timeline when Digimon were accepted in public, maybe. Though, if it were a Gabumon…

No, Gabumon had told her already. It had gotten chased around by some very eager kids, and it wasn't a fan of that. In fact, that was why it was hiding on her stairs, back in September. It would just happen again. Gabumon was too popular and too recognizable.

She looked around. She hadn't been keen on the idea of Gabumon working in the kitchen. After all, everything was a lot taller than it could reach – it could climb up there if it wanted to, but from the floor, its standing height wasn't quite tall enough.

Maybe she could fix that. She left the chopsticks on the pan and looked around. Gabumon asked, "What are you looking for?"

"Something you can stand on." She eventually settled on her mother's footstool in the primary bedroom and dragged it to the kitchen. "You want to help?"

"I thought you said I shouldn't."

Satsuki admitted, "I used to think so, but… you really do need something to do than watch me, so why not join me?"

Gabumon jumped off the sofa and got up on the footstool. It was still not a great height, but at least it could reach over. The heat from the pan emanated right up at its face. At least it was an electric stovetop, it figured. No flames to singe its pelt. "What's going on?" it asked.

"Just some seared tuna. While that cooks, can you help put the salad together?"

"Okay." There were a lot of greens in a plastic box, as well as a carrot, a few radishes, and a few cucumbers. It had seen her make this before, so it wasn't new to anything. It got to slicing the radishes and cucumbers.

"So I take it you've done this before, too," Satsuki remarked.

"I made a lot of stuff on my own, when I travelled. I had to," it replied. "Even when I travelled with friends, they'd still ask me to cook for them. It was nothing fancy, though. Not like your parents."

Satsuki nodded. "I guess that's why your favourite things are still the normal things, like curry."

"Mmhm."

"Hey," asked Satsuki, "does the Digital World have curry powder?"

"No, but I've tried something that was close to it. It was a bunch of dried herbs and roots. None of them looked like the ones you'd find here though."

"Oh?"

"Ah, just different colours and shapes. I noticed there are a lot fewer blue plants here in the Human World than in the Digital World."

"I see." Every time Gabumon brought up the subject, it seemed like their two worlds shared so much in common, yet also did not. It was getting unsettling. Maybe it was just one huge coincidence, but… maybe not.

Kazuhiko was pushing himself farther than ever. His legs were at least getting accustomed to this. It had been just about an hour of cycling. Granted, he wasn't going particularly fast, but he figured farther was better than faster, at least in the crowded areas of Koto and Sumida. He paused pedalling, allowing the wheels to spin on inertia, turned into a relatively empty-looking area, and eventually came to a stop.

Finally, he had managed to bike continuously to Big Sight without stopping. A sixty-minute or so bike ride, from near the start of the Kyunaka river along the riverside trail and forking off at route 14. "Monodramon," he huffed, "I did it."

It popped out of his phone. "Nice! How are you feeling?"

"Not bad." He leaned on the handlebars. It was tiring at least, but he wasn't cramping up. That was a positive. "I think I'll try some other path next time. It's getting kind of boring."

"Whatever keeps you going! So, what next?"

"Uh…" he thought, rubbing his thighs, "I'm not sure." He took a sip of water from his water bottle. "Hey, let's stop by the Gundam statue."

"The what?"

"You'll know when you see it." Monodramon got back into his phone. He kept cycling. Somehow this next section seemed harder than before. Perhaps it was because he had stopped for too long. He grunted and kept pushing. He looked about. He wouldn't be getting over the Akemi Bridge, of course. He sighed and diverted into a park, following the instructions on his phone, then circled up and around a pedestrian and cycling bridge instead, and continued south-west. He could see the sky wheel come up on his left. He'd already been here with Satsuki last week. She was spending some time with Gabumon today, so it was just him and Monodramon. He didn't really mind – Monodramon deserved his attention as much as she did.

He continued pushing and crossed Tokyo Teleport station, grateful that the park was sparsely used right now. After all, most people were either in school or at work. He figured this must be what vacationers felt like. He hadn't experienced this in a long time, not in Tokyo, at least. It was a bit uncanny. He looked up to this right. If he was in the right place – he cracked a wide grin. It was here. He shook his head and laughed to himself. Just imagine if any people working in that building caught wind of what was in his phone!

The Fuji TV building disappeared behind Diver City. He was close now. He rolled up and down the bridge, and knew it was somewhere to his right. The trees were in the way, though. He came to a stop and dismounted, then pushed his bicycle's front tire into a rack, and kicked down the stand. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"We're here?" asked Monodramon.

"Just about." He continued several paces further, then turned right. "There it is."

Monodramon was speechless for a moment. "D-does it move?!" it asked excitedly. "It looks pretty sick!"

Kazuhiko laughed. "No, it doesn't, unfortunately. It would be pretty cool if it be piloted."

"Piloted?"

"In all the Gundam stories, they're just big battle suits. Someone gets inside them and moves them around with controls."

"Uh… what?"

So Monodramon had absolutely no idea. He was going to have a hard time explaining this one then. Just before he could get to explaining, though, something caught his eye. A shimmer.

Monodramon could see his expression through the camera's front phone. "Kazuhiko, did you see something?"

"This can't be." He ran toward it. Was it one? It was right up against the wall of Diver City's exterior. "Monodramon, do you sense anything?"

"A Junction?! Oh, no. Give me a second. It might be weak." Monodramon hopped out of his phone and ran toward it alongside him.

They came to a stop. He stared at it and reached a hand out. It was solid, just had been hit by some oil, which had left a thin film behind. Monodramon remarked, "It's nothing, Kazuhiko."

"Thank goodness," he huffed. He sighed and squatted down. "I was about to freak out."

"Kazuhiko, it's been two months without any kind of weirdness. I think it's gone for good. Satsuki even said the professor had shut it all down and closed the project indefinitely."

He shook his head. "I know, I know. I'm just… nervous, I guess, that they might be coming back. Somehow." He stood back up. "Ah! Someone's coming, Monodramon!"

"Oop!" It hopped back into his phone before someone could see the purple dragon standing about. "Kazuhiko," it continued, "you shouldn't be worried. It'll be fine." But even in the back of its mind, it was aware – there was too much they didn't know. They still didn't know, for example, where exactly these things had come from, and why they had been possible in the first place.

More importantly, Monodramon had realized some time ago, they had no idea what was happening in the Digital World. Lomamon, Hawkmon, and even now Amedramon were thinking about visiting it some day.

But it wondered: what if there was no Digital World to go back to?