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Back From the Water Cooler

Squeezing the spigot on the water cooler as hard as she could, Tally Onodera didn't care if she broke the thing. With how the previous night had gone, she had the right to be mad, and no inanimate object was going to guilt her into calming down.

"And do you know what he said to cap it all off?" Tally almost shouted as she spun around to the one coworker who was present to listen.

Riley Otori sat calmly at the break room's circular table, gently drumming her fingers on her coffee mug. Her patience was truly her best feature, for which Tally was too grateful to question whether or not she actively anticipated an earful when starting small talk.

"Something else to make you mad, I take it," Riley answered evenly.

"Yeah, I hear government jobs are pretty lousy, but don't worry, babe." Tally deepened and dumbed down her voice, wanting to recreate exactly how stupid her date had sounded. "If we get married, you don't have to keep working."

Riley shrugged. "To be fair, it does feel like we're underpaid sometimes."

"Yeah, well this is my thankless government job!" Tally slammed her cup on the table as she sat opposite her counterpart. "If he knew half of what I did for this city, he'd be offering to be the homemaker."

"So I take it you won't be seeing him again," Riley said before taking a sip from her mug.

Tally sank in her seat, suddenly feeling sapped of energy. "I'm gonna die alone, aren't I?"

"Probably not?"

"Why'd you phrase that as a question?"

"Oh, look at the time!" Riley looked down at her wrist that most certainly did not have a watch on it. "We should get back to it."

"Right…" Tally sat up straight, though didn't feel any more lively. "Don't we have any interns left that can cover the rest of this shift?"

"We only ever had the two." Riley stood and pushed her chair in.

"And why did we reduce their hours again?"

Objectively speaking, Henry and Alice's presence at Hypnos had always been a bit of an anomaly. Despite being more talented than some of the adults the organization would headhunt for staff, their positions had been put under a microscope by people outside of the building, only being approved due to their connection to the digital threats that Hypnos defended the city against.

"Child labor laws," Riley summarized.

Tally snorted. "Well, I remember treating them like the younger siblings I never had."

"Don't you mean the children you never had?" Riley asked on her way out the door.

"You know I don't!" Tally called after her before deflating again.

Now alone, Tally considered taking some time off from work, basically a daily conversation she had with herself. She had plenty of sick days and vacation time to take advantage of, and no one would fault her for doing so. The real issue was more down to her own stupid conscience. She took pride in what she did for a living, knowing what she did was important, and she knew her stepping away meant either doubling Riley's responsibilities or leaving her seat in the hands of someone less capable.

Plus, what would I even do with my free time? Tally thought, shrugging as she finally stood up. Waste more nights on mouth-breathers?

Resolving to pick up this conversation at the same time tomorrow, Tally moved straight for the exit, determined not to let anything delay her from returning to work.

That was until a small white and purple creature casually glided right past her head and in the opposite direction. Heading straight for the break room fridge and opening the door way more easily than his tiny arms should have allowed, he quickly began to shuffle through some unmarked containers, not a care for anyone who may or may not be watching.

"Calumon?"

"That's my name!" the Digimon in question chirped as he poked his head out of the fridge.

Tally questioned what she was watching for a split second, but how instinctively Calumon went through his motions on top of how no one had ever complained about missing food convinced her it didn't matter. If anything, Calumon's presence itself was the bigger question mark. The Tamers and their Digimon typically didn't come up to this floor without someone being alerted beforehand, so him being here brought up an old itch in the back of her head.

"Do you just come through the front door and ride the elevator up?" Tally asked.

"Pfft!" Calumon waved a dismissive hand at her. "Front doors are for squares."

Tally sighed, concluding that further questions wouldn't go anywhere. She would probably report a potential security breach out of obligation, though her and Riley had once had a serious conversation as to whether or not Calumon could teleport.

"You've got a unique way of looking at things, you know that?" Tally put forward instead.

"I do have more fun than most people," Calumon replied, clearly accepting the compliment.

"I'm a little bit jealous."

Calumon paused briefly, letting the fridge close behind before floating back towards Tally. Stopping when the two of them were at eye-level, he squinted and leaned closer, as though her were examining her.

"Are you feeling okay, Tally?" Calumon asked as he continued his examination.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Your face is looking all wrinkley." Calumon poked at the skin under Tally's eye.

"Don't push your luck," she replied through her teeth as she swatted his hand away.

"Oh, I know!" Calumon piped up, completely undeterred. "We should play a game. That always helps me feel better."

Tally wouldn't get to even try to formulate a genuine response to the suggestion, as a steady chirping noise pulled her out of her head space. The building's "silent" alarm was meant to alert the staff of a imminent non-emergency situation, most often a low-level wild Digimon trying to bio-emerge within the city. Whatever it was, though, it needed her attention.

"That might have to wait," Tally said as she committed to returning to work.

With Calumon keeping pace with her, Tally jogged across the hall, barely pausing her stride to swipe her ID card at an electronic lock that separated her station from the rest of the building. Stepping into the main Hypnos control hub, she scanned the monitors lining the walls to get some indication of what they were dealing with.

The hub itself had been reorganized a few times over the years, between Hypnos changing the location of its headquarters and experimentation to figure out the most optimal way to manage the city's defense. It's current format had Tally and Riley in their original and elevated workstations, with articulated arms allowing them to shift around the room, though now supported by a number of other techs working at ground level. These techs reported directly to them, and dealt with the more minute details of their operation, which meant they didn't have to micromanage the way they had during the initial wave of bio-emergences.

Mitsuo Yamaki stood at the center of the action, a lighter in his hand and scowl on his face. Hypnos' leader only took his eyes off the surrounding monitors when Tally passed by him.

"I see you've finally managed to dig up a new intern," Yamaki said, deadpan delivery and trademark sunglasses making it difficult to determine if the comment was a joke or not.

Tally glanced over her shoulder at Calumon before giving an aloof salute. "I believe his enthusiasm will make up for his lack of experience, Sir."

Yamaki didn't give them any further consideration, turning his attention back to the hub. As Calumon wandered off to marvel at one of the monitors, Tally finished her walk to her station.

Once she was seated and comfortable, Tally hit the control yoke that controlled her ascent. Eyeing the blinking red light that everyone was focused on, she slipped on her electronic visor and lowered her hands to her control panel.

"What's the situation?" Tally requested.

"Tracer's locked onto a mid-tier threat," Riley explained. "Champion level, maybe Ultimate, got itself caught in The Net."

The Net, of course, being Hypnos' primary line of defense against digital threats. A grid lining Shinjuku's digital infrastructure, it had proved to be the most effective deterrence against wild Digimon to date, particularly against higher level threats once they were properly detected.

"We're casting it back?" Tally asked, more to confirm that this threat didn't call for anything more than basic protocol.

"That's the plan." Riley hit a couple buttons and pivoted towards the target. "Takemi, hit the switch."

The tech in question called out an affirmation, and within a few seconds, the red dot on the map faded from view, their "nudge" enough to encourage it to return to the Digital World. Aside from the usual humming and beeping of machines, the room was quiet for a brief moment following.

"This screen looks fuzzy," Calumon said suddenly, still fixated on the same monitor as before.

"Looks alright to me," Riley replied, though the tone of voice said her curiosity was piqued.

Tally didn't see anything either, though their current lull gave them a moment to be thorough. Pulling up a couple commands on her screen, she prepared to take a closer look at that spot on the grid.

"That's not what he means," Yamaki cut in, always two steps ahead of everyone else. "Tally-"

"Already checking…" Tally accelerated her key strokes, eventually landing on on what they were afraid they were all looking for. "Networking in that sector is flooded with garbage data."

Yamaki clicked his lighter. "Peel it back. Now."

"Executing…"

Tally worked quickly, wiping away the smog of data that was flooding their sensors. Eventually, she was successful, revealing a blinking red dot underneath it all. Larger and darker than the last, which coupled with additional data she was receiving could only indicate on thing: Mega level.

Worse, power fluctuations from The Net itself were all over the place. By all appearances, this wild Digimon was trying to brute force its way through the barrier. Not a brand new tactic as far as any of them should have been concerned, but a troubling one either way.

"High priority target confirmed," Tally reported.

"Deal with it," Yamaki ordered, before facing the rest of the room. "Scan the rest of the grid for any kind of static."

"Roger… that…" Tally found her attention drawn back to her readout, noting one more fluctuation. "Huh?"

As if in response, the whole hub flickered before going dark. A single second later, lights and systems came back to life, though the fact they had gone out at all had put them all on alert.

Tally's immediate response was to retaliate, though her first attempt at making contact with her control panel was met with a spark. Another followed, until smoke actually began to rise out of her workstation.

"Status!" Yamaki called out.

"Th-That's not fair," Tally muttered to herself as she pulled off her visor.

"Riley!"

"Back up power is holding," Riley responded, eyes not leaving her personal display and hands staying planted on her control panel. "Rerouting to security subsystems."

"Little bastard…" Tally growled, her station functioning just enough that she was able to lower herself back to ground level.

"Target is on the move!" one of the techs dictated. Sure enough, all indications were that this Digimon was digging deeper into The Net.

"I see him!" Tally pushed herself off her seat, ready to go to war. A more logical voice in her head suggested that she calm down, though that voice clearly had not been living the same twenty four hours she had just been through. She had every intention of taking her frustration out on the creature who had dared to make things worse.

Racing across the room to the nearest station, Tally all but pushed its tech aside and started to input commands.

"Ma'am, I can-"

"You type like an old lady, Sakamoto," Tally spat back at the tech in question, shutting him up instantly. "No, you can't!"

Tally finished typing her sequence, just about ready to follow through. They still had a decent window to fight back, but their enemy was smart, which meant they had to be precise with their timing.

"You have a lock?" Riley called down to her, multiple encounters like this one meaning that the two of them were on the same page on how to respond to setbacks.

Tally glanced upwards, hands still hovering over the last button she had to press. "Just need you to back me up."

Riley nodded and went to work. "Reallocating power for you…"

"Now!" Tally jabbed her finger into the console, and let The Net do the rest.

Looking back up at the spot on the grid, the marker at the Digimon's location began to shake and then shrink. While it was difficult to say exactly what was happening from their perspective, Tally guessed boosting The Net's power output at this spot would likely disintegrate the Digimon and any leftover data. She might have felt bad in any other instance, but this was an organized attack, not just on the Real World but on Hypnos itself.

"Ma'am?" Takemi's voice called out across the room. "There's another, buried under a second cloud of garbage data."

Tally looked to the appropriate monitor, seeing another flashing light indicating another Mega had been lying in wait for them. Still on edge with no other real course of action, Tally straightened herself out and prepared to continue the fight.

"Acquiring…" Tally called back as she looked over the nearest readout, not quite sure what their next play would be.

"Negative, power's too low." Yamaki suddenly appeared at her side, pausing for a split second to click his lighter once more. "They played us."

Tally finally let herself exhale. "Copy…"

"We're not done yet, people. I want half of you assessing damage and repairs, and the other half seeing if we can't use what power's left to funnel this hostile to a less populated location." Yamaki paused one more time, then looked upwards. "Riley, alert our associates."

Riley gave a quick salute. "On it, Boss."

Tally dragged herself back to her station, which seemed significantly less on fire than it had been a moment ago. As she sat down, Calumon landed next to her.

"Now I see why everyone around here is so high-strung," he said, sounding a little tired himself. "Your games are no fun."

"Never get old, Calumon." Tally pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned back in her chair.

Calumon shrugged. "Well, I haven't digivolved yet."

Tally knew she had a long night ahead of her, regardless of how easily the Tamers dealt with this wild Digimon. With that in mind, though, she had a renewed commitment to having a conversation about taking some time off the following morning.