Chapter Text
The potential of strange messages coming in made it much easier for Kyle to remember to check his phone. His stomach fluttered anxiously when he saw a message waiting at the next class break, and it lurched as he read the contents.
I'm someone who knows what you found. Has it hatched yet?
He traded the phone in his hand for the digivice, and talked rapidly on his way through the halls.
“Someone else knows about it!”
“Rrr? About what?”
“The digivice! I got a message, and they asked if you hatched.”
“Oh! I did!”
“I know that! But that means someone else knows about you.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know!” Kyle leaned on the wall outside his next classroom, taking deep breaths as he tried to calm himself.
“It would be nice to have more friends. Maybe they know about the Digital World?”
“Yeah… yeah, I guess so.” Coyomon’s forthrightness was soothing. “Okay. Thanks bud. I’ll let you know what they say.”
“Yay!”
He pocketed the digivice, and tapped out a phone response.
yes. what do u know about it?
This time, the response came before he even got to his seat in the room.
I'd like to meet, if we can. As soon as possible. Perhaps at the public library where you posted the signs?
A public place seemed safe enough.
ok. im in school til 3 so after that. & im bringing friends
With that sent, he stashed the phone in his backpack again, just in time to avoid his history teacher’s glare.
“Okay, new plan.” Kyle said to his friends when they gathered in the computer lab after school. He held out the phone so they could read the messages. One more had appeared on his way out of class.
I'm sitting near the computers. Look for a blonde woman with short hair and a laptop.
“Cool, this seems safe and not at all the sort of thing that stranger danger warnings are about,” Bryan said.
June elbowed him. “Presumably, that’s why we’re all going. And it’s the library.”
Kyle nodded. “Also, I already told my mom I’ll be there to get picked up at 5:30, so if I’m not there, she’ll probably call the police at 5:31.”
Bryan shrugged. “Okay then,” he said as the three headed out. “Can’t believe you’re getting me to go to the library two days in a row. And getting out of that rematch, again, too.”
June rolled her eyes. “Like you never go to the library on your own. You check out every new comic volume they get. And wouldn’t you rather have your own Digimon, instead of just playing with cards?”
Bryan grinned. “Depends on the Digimon. I don’t want to end up with a dud. There’s a lot of duds.”
“Then you should probably stop acting like a dud,” June replied with a smirk of her own. “Your partner’s supposed to match your personality, right?”
Those words caught Kyle by surprise, and he pondered them as they walked away from the school. Did Coyomon match his personality? The Digimon seemed fearless, which was both stressful and admirable. But Coyomon was also painfully naive. Was that just a result of being so newly-hatched, or did it say something about Kyle himself? In the shows, the bond between partners was empowered by some sort of grand virtue like Courage or Friendship. Was that part of Digimon themselves, or just a narrative device? He wasn’t at all sure what important life lessons he was supposed to learn from Coyomon.
“Partner-Kyle?” Coyomon’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. He’d been walking on autopilot, and they’d made it almost all the way to the library. “Can I come out now? Pleeease?”
June and Bryan were staring at him expectantly. “Oh, uh… you’ll probably have to, soon. But we need to meet whoever-this-is inside first. Hold on a couple more minutes. I’ve got a bag of jerky for you when you come out.”
“That just makes it harder to wait!”
“Sorry bud. Jerky soon, don’t worry.” Kyle lowered his voice as he pushed the doors of the library open. As he passed by the bulletin board, he noticed that his flyer had been taken down. He frowned to himself, but continued inside. “Okay, now we gotta be quiet in here, like it’s class.”
He rounded a corner, followed by Bryan and June, and stopped short as he saw the woman sitting at a table, focussed on her laptop. In his head, he’d somehow expected her to be dressed like a government agent, in a dark suit and maybe even glasses, but she was just wearing a simple blouse and pair of jeans.
Kyle stepped closer, waving once he was in her line of sight. At a loss for what to say, he just pulled out the digivice, and held it up until she noticed.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, closing her computer and standing up. She glanced briefly at Bryan and June, but soke directly to Kyle. “Shall we talk outside? I’d like to see where you found it.”
“I’d like to know who you are, first,” Kyle said, and he could see the other two nodding in his peripheral vision.
“Ah, of course. My name is Margaret Clarke. I’m a researcher at the Jemez Mountain Institute, and I have quite a bit of history with Digimon.”
“My parents work at JMI!” June said, slightly too loudly for the library. “I thought you looked familiar.”
The woman nodded, giving June a longer look. “Dr. Otsuka’s daughter?” she asked.
“And Dr. Reynolds’,” June added, sounding slightly annoyed.
“Right. So you can reassure your friends that I’m not a dangerous text-stalker?”
June shrugged. “She seems fine, yeah.”
“Well, okay. So I’m Kyle, this is Bryan, and I guess you sorta know June?”
Dr. Clarke nodded. “It’s nice to meet you all, but I think Kyle and I have some things to discuss in confidence.”
Kyle shook his head. “Oh no way. They want to know too. They’ve been helping me research what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” said Bryan. “We were sorta hoping we could get our own?”
June nodded eagerly. “We’ve seen what Kyle has, and what it can do,” she added.
“I see. Well then. I suppose you’re all already involved, and you should all hear what I have to say. Outside?” She focussed on Kyle again. “I presume that’s where you found it.”
He nodded, leading the way. “Yeah, just out here.” They crossed the small parking lot. “In the culvert, under the road.” He led the way down into the arroyo.
“Confined space, out of view, good…” Dr. Clarke seemed to be mostl talking to herself.
“Oh awesome, more stranger danger talk,” Bryan whispered, earning him another elbowing from June.
The woman apparently didn’t hear, or didn’t mind. She turned to Kyle. “And you said the egg has hatched?”
“Yesterday, around this time, yeah.” After a few moments of silence, he finally worked out that she was waiting for him to demonstrate. “Oh! Right.” He pulled out the Digivice. “Coyomon, come on out!”
“Finally! Jerky time?”
Dr. Clarke took a step back, eyes wide, but quickly steadied herself. “Sorry, I haven’t seen one in person in quite some time.” She looked Coyomon up and down thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen this species before at all, though. Did you design it?”
“Him,” Kyle said, opening a bag of spicy jerky and holding it out for Coyomon. “Thank you for being so patient,” he said to the Digimon, before turning back to Dr. Clarke. “And yeah, I did. I think about Digimon a ton.” His mind was so full of questions that it was hard to think which one to say first. “So, is he… do I… does this happen a lot?”
“More and more each month,” the researcher replied with a nod. “I believe the total count is around forty by now? I can check the full info. I’m sorry I’m not more prepared; I’m not the one who usually does this, but when one showed up so close to where I already was, we decided it was easier if I just came myself…”
“Wait,” June said. “Forty? Forty people with Digimon? I found out about like six! And who’s ‘we’, anyway? Is it JMI? Do my parents know about this?”
Dr. Clarke raised a hand. “No, not JMI. There’s some research into the subject going on there, it’s why I was hired, but they’re not the ones monitoring this. That would be… well, I don’t know if you all are old enough to remember the specifics of what happened in Tokyo, five years ago?”
“Not really, but we’ve had a pretty good reason to look into it recently,” Kyle replied dryly. “Would this be that… Hypnos thing?” He kept one eye on Coyomon, who was nearly done with his snack and would likely be acting up soon, but most of his focus was on the woman.
She nodded slightly. “The group that ran Hypnos is still focussed on monitoring the intersection of this world and the Digital. I consult with them, along with some of my colleagues. We created the Digimon, over twenty years ago now, and we try to help keep things… balanced. Safe.”
Bryan spoke up now. “Oh! You worked with Dr. McCoy?”
She smiled. “Dolphin, yes. You have been doing your research. They called me Daisy, if that name happened to come up. I preferred to be more in the background, though.”
Coyomon pulled his nose out of the now-empty jerky bag. “You made me? Or Partner-Kyle made me?”
Dr. Clarke paused, and for a moment Kyle was worried she wouldn’t talk directly to Coyomon. “I helped make your… ancestors, I suppose. And your world.”
Coyomon tilted his head, looking confused, but Kyle jumped on that. “Right! The Digital World! We were wondering if, well… can we go there? Is that a thing?”
“As a matter of fact, that’s why I wanted to meet you as soon as I could, and see where you found your device.” She gestured to the nearby drainage pipe. “The fact that you have that means a portal is already beginning to form here. And you… Kyle, yes? You’re responsible for it.”
Kyle stared at her for a long moment, then looked toward the pipe. Was there a faint shimmer in the air there now? He looked back at her. “Like… responsible like it’s my fault? Or like… I have… portal… chores?”
“Most likely, both,” replied Dr. Clarke, with a faint smile. “Let me back up. When we repelled the D-Reaper—the ‘physical malware’ I mean; I noticed the news here never really liked to use the real name of the thing—the process also sent the Digimon back to their world. We believed it would also prevent future cross-overs, but that turned out to be not entirely true.”
“The big bug in Sunnyvale?” Bryan suggested.
Dr. Clarke shuddered slightly. “Yes, that’s one example, but it wasn’t the first; the first was thanks to one of the original Tamer children in Japan. It’s hard to blame him, he lost a friend and wanted him back. But yes, he wasn’t the only one who could push through. As I said, it’s happened over three dozen times, often as a result of someone… for lack of a better word… wishing for it.”
Kyle thought back to that moment a few days ago, his intense desire to simply escape, somewhere, anywhere, moments before he saw that rainbow flash. “I just… wanted it hard enough?”
“We believe there’s more to it than that; some element of random chance, some speculation about other entities who are involved. We’d expect there to be far more portals otherwise. But that’s why we’ve done our best to keep the details of this quiet. I believe there’s also less focus on crossing over in the newer Digimon shows, as you may have noticed? And that brings me to your responsibilities.”
“Portal chores,” June said. “Guarding it?”
“The portal is forming, and strengthening day by day. Within a week or two, it will be open enough for physical cross-over, from either direction. Hence incidents like the big bug in Sunnyvale. Wild Digimon rarely do anything good when they cross over. So yes, these portals need guarding. That’s why you have the digivice. We… made arrangements so that a digivice would be generated with each new portal that forms.”
Kyle was nodding along, excitement growing inside him. “So then the person who made the portal can use the digivice and get a Digimon to protect it! Cool!” He paused then, frowning. “Um. One problem. I live, like, half an hour away from here. By car.”
Bryan suddenly lunged into the conversation again. “I live like a quarter-mile from here! Can I have the digivice? I can protect it!”
Kyle clutched the digivice to his chest, and Coyomon actually growled at the other boy.
“I don’t think that’s gonna work out,” June observed.
Dr. Clarke nodded. “Kyle, I’m not an expert in Digimon… ah… taming, but I’d recommend you and Coyomon work on ways to get around on your own, in that case. I believe Digimon can often develop skills that match their needs.”
Kyle nodded, relaxing slightly. “Oh yeah, I mean he’s already lightning-based, so that should work for moving fast!”
Then, she turned to Bryan. “I can understand why you’d want your own. And honestly, Kyle might need the help if he has trouble getting here. Fortunately, it’s quite likely you’ll end up with your own, sooner or later. Tamers do tend to cluster.”
“Right! Now that I know it’s possible, I just…” Bryan squeezed his eyes shut and held out a hand. “I wish I had a digivice!”
Everyone else stared at Bryan for several moments as nothing happened. Finally he opened his eyes again, and looked dejected.
“Nice try?” Kyle said, with a half-grin
June nodded. “I guess it’s not quite that easy.” She sounded disappointed too.
Dr. Clarke chuckled softly. “For a start, you might want to try somewhere else. It’s particularly hard for a new portal to form in the same place as an existing one. Oh, and keep in mind, you will have your own portal to guard, if and when your wish is granted.”
June and Bryan were both listening intently, nodding along. Apparently they weren’t bothered by the prospect of such responsibility themselves, or perhaps the reality of it just hadn’t hit them yet.
Kyle, however, kept looking back at the shadows of the culvert, trying to catch sight of the faint shimmer he was sure he saw there now. Something he’d made, something he and Coyomon would have to take care of. The idea made him more anxious than anything else since he’d found the digivice. But at the same time, he now knew for sure that there was a Digital World there waiting for him to explore. Surely that was worth a few portal chores.