Digimon Tamers: CYPHER [M]
Feb 2, 2021 5:36:50 GMT
Post by roule on Feb 2, 2021 5:36:50 GMT
WARNINGS FOR PROFANITY AND MENTIONS OF TOBACCO USE. WARNINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE IN FUTURE CHAPTERS
1.
Immaterial
It was about five minutes before the office closed for the night when my cell phone had begun to ring. I had been sitting back on my office chair for the past hour or so, the heel of my dress shoes digging into the desk. I was barely paying attention to the computer which was open to an article about the sixteenth anniversary of the D-Reaper attacks on Tokyo, my eyes shut and my hand over my eyes, and at first I just sat there in silence as my phone vibrated against the desk.
“Camille,” my coworker, Mike, nudged me on the shoulder with a pale hand. “Your phone. It’s ringing.”
“Ugh, fuck,” I grunted, sitting up quickly. “Jesus Christ they’re really running it close.”
I grabbed it quickly, only to tilt my head at who’s calling. It’s the front desk, and right now, my mind blanks on the reason or who needed me.
I answered the phone regardless.
“Sadie, hello,” I said, faking a happy tone. “What do you need me for?”
“Camille?” The receptionist asked, and I could immediately tell something was wrong by the shakiness in her voice. “Are you in the building?”
“Yes, yes I am,” I responded, anxiety already beginning to seep up towards my throat. “What’s wrong? Is it my parents?”
“No… No it’s…” She stumbled over her words, and started talking away from the phone. I could hear what sounds like an older man speaking to her, but not what he was saying.
“Sadie? Are you there?” I asked, my voice sounding higher in my ears. I ran a hand through my dark hair, fingers getting stuck in dried hairspray.
“Could you come down to reception?” Sadie asked slowly, her voice unsure. “There’s someone here who wants to speak to you. It’s urgent.”
“I’ll be right down,” I said, and hung up the phone. I stared blankly at my desk for a few moments, looking over the dark wood making up my desk.
What was going on? My family and friends were far away from where I worked. It would’ve been a several hour trip down to visit me, and there… wasn’t any reason too. So who..?
It was several minutes before I noticed that Mike was trying to get my attention.
“What was that Camille?” He asked, green eyes wide. “You’re pale as a sheet. Did someone-”
“No, no,” I responded, waving my hand in an attempt to dissuade him. “Someone needs to speak to me. Right before I’m fucking off for the night too.”
Mike did not seem convinced in the slightest. Still, he did not stop me as I gathered up my things, and shut off my computer.
“Listen,” he said as I stood up to leave. “If you need to talk to anyone…”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll be fine. Probably just some sale I fucked up.”
Even if it isn’t, I had thought to myself, I’m not gonna use some dude I work with as a free therapist. That’s just sticking my fucking neck out. I don’t want that shit.
And with that, I walked out of the office, shutting the door behind me. Quickly, I adjusted my tie slightly, straightening out the creased sleeves of my suit jacket before walking briskly towards the elevator. There were a few people I knew, some people I worked on projects with, some I knew from the cafeteria, but I was too busy reeling over that fucking phonecall to do anything beyond a wave, feet moving on autopilot.
I was broken out of my thoughts as I pushed into the elevator, slamming into the only person inside. There was a clatter, as something fell to the floor, hitting the metal floor.
“Shit,” I growled underneath my breath, dropping to my knees to grab whatever I had knocked away. “Fuck me, dude…”
My hand grabbed a small metallic foil package, placing it in the middle of my palm as I stood up. I flipped it over, and noticed that familiar blue-and-orange logo, and a familiar yellow dinosaur below it, bellowing fire. This was...
I quickly looked over at the person who I ran into. He looked about my age, wide, somewhat thick hands that were rubbing the base of his nose, and I noticed that he was only wearing a dress shirt and black slacks. Probably in another department, investment people like me always had to have a suit jacket and tie on, even in June. His hair was dark, cropped short in a way that made it flare out towards the front, a hairstyle I had seen all over the city. The man’s eyes were shut tight, round face set in a painful grimace.
“I’m so sorry,” I said as the elevator doors shut. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, how stupid of me…”
“It’s fine,” he groaned, finally opening their eyes.
I held out the Digimon card pack to him, and they took it from my hand with a weak smile and a muttered ‘thank you’. I stepped towards the far end of the elevator car, before it started to descend.
“So,” I asked, turning my head towards him. “What’s up with the Digimon cards? You a fan?”
He looked back at me, a curious look in his face. I expected him to get embarrassed about it, or sort of flustered, but nothing on his face betrayed any sort of emotion.
“No,” he says, a slight smile on his face. “It’s for my cousin’s birthday. I bought it while on lunch break.”
“Ah,” I responded, rubbing at my nose. “Well, it’s nice to hear that some things still stay the same…”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was a little Digimon superstar back in the day,” I grinned, and watched the man’s eyebrows raise. “Beat all the kids in the schoolyard. Maybe if I had kept up with it, I would’ve ended up like those kids in Tokyo.”
“Oh really?” He said, looking down at the card pack, then back to me.
I nodded, and a soft, warm sort of sadness settled in my heart, curling in on itself. I thought of wide-open blue skies, the ocean crashing against rocky cliffs, and a young boy with messy black hair, looking up at me, holding out a card to me...
Hideki…
“Hey, uh,” the man suddenly said, and I snapped back to reality. “This, uh… this wasn’t supposed to be all I’m giving him.”
“He’s really into this Digimon game now, and apparently it’s becoming more of a… serious competitive game I think?”
I felt my eyebrows raise. Competitive Digimon…? So, tournaments, players, and cash prizes… I barely kept myself from grinning mischievously. This could be an interesting hobby for me, well, whenever the job left me free time.
“I barely know anything about it,” the man laughed, rubbing his thumb. “Neither do any of my friends. I know we barely know each other, but you seem to know more than me... Could you help me out on this tomorrow? At lunch maybe?”
Without thinking, I nodded quickly. I did kind of owe him in a way after slamming into him, face first. Plus, I hated to admit it, but eating sushi alone in the food court was extremely pathetic looking for someone like me.
“Sure,” I smiled back at him, before stretching out my hand. “I’m Camille.”
“Oh, uh,” the man stammered, grabbing my hand. “I’m Alex. Nice to meet you.”
I nodded and shook his hand firmly. Alex doesn’t sound like a bad guy, I thought to myself. It’d be good for me to actually have more friends here. Connections to rely on later.
The elevator chimes, and both of us get out of the elevator car. I still had a little ways to go to the front office, and the anxiety crept back up onto me. Alex was walking beside me still, hands shoved in his pockets. I guess we had been heading in the same direction.
Dumbass, part of me snarled, of course he was. It’s seven. He’s leaving for the night. People are leaving now, and you’re in fucking limbo because some idiot decided they needed to speak with you right before the building closed.
I had let out a breath of air through my teeth, the noise sounding like a hiss. Whatever this is, there better be something good in it for me. Fuckin’ hell.
With a few more steps, I walked through a door and ended standing in front of the reception desk. Sadie was standing off to the side of it, her pale hands clasped in an odd fashion, hunched over slightly. She was staring at me, then Alex, then a strange little plush doll sitting on a chair on the other side of the room.
The thing on the chair, what I could make of it from where I stood, was a pinkish-white doll of a rabbit-like creature, posed in a way that made it look like it was sitting perfectly upright. However, I noted, it has two pairs of ears, with odd purple stripes on both of them, and what appeared to be a pink ribbon across its little body, the bottom of which resembled the bottom of a dress more than an actual rabbit’s lower body.
My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at the thing sitting there. Is this some sort of prank? Maybe it was, I thought, I’ve only been with the company for what? Two months? Maybe it’s some fucked up way to get at the new girl, some sort of hazing.
I looked over to Sadie, eyebrow raised, but she showed no hints of amusement. If she was pranking me, she was a pretty damn good actor.
“Miss Laskier?” Alex asked nervously, looking over at the doll. “What’s the matter?”
All of the sudden, I watched the doll’s head whip towards me, its red eyes staring at me.
I cried out, falling to the ground. The thing, undeterred by my reaction, grabbed the arms of the chair and slid onto the floor. I watched, my limbs frozen to the floor as it walked towards me, its stubby arms on its hips.
“What the fuck are you?!” I screamed, my mouth the only part of me working. “Get the fuck away from me!”
“Relax Camille Tologanak,” it spoke, its voice thick with a New Jersey accent. A familiar one, one that sounded like a certain older male actor I had heard on television recently, and part of me nearly started laughing. “Cal-”
“Alex, Sadie, please tell me I’m making this up,” I begged, finally wobbling back to my feet. “Please tell me there isn’t a rabbit doll here speaking with the voice of Danny DeVito right here. Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”
“You’re not hallucinating, Camille Tologanak,” Sadie said, walking towards me. “H-He came in asking for you a half hour ago…”
I whimpered, holding my head in my hands. I felt Alex cautiously putting a hand on my back, and I didn’t stop him.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly rude?” The thing asked, walking right up to my feet and glaring at me. “There’s no need for you to interrupt me and insult me like that.”
“Well, respectfully sir,” Alex said, kneeling down to look the creature in the eyes much like someone would do with a cat. “We don't… usually see things like you around here. Please forgive us.”
The creature stared at Alex, its gaze softening a little. My head felt like someone was pressing their thumbs against the sides, slowly putting more pressure onto it before it popped like a squeezed grape.
“How do you know my name?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Who are you?”
This garnered a smile from the creature, and it put its paw forward.
“I am Lunamon, agent of the Sovereign,” it says proudly. “From this day forward, we are partners!”
I felt sick. Past the shock of both having this thrown onto me at random, and the fact that as far as I knew this was the first sighting of a digimon in the real world in sixteen years, there was a sudden bolt of childish excitement. A digimon wanted to be partnered with me! This had been my childhood dream for years! Both of those feelings churned in my gut, and covered my eyes with my hand.
What would Hideki think of me now, I thought to myself, balking at the idea of becoming a tamer...
“We have much to discuss,” Lunamon continues, and I could hear it walking away from me. “But we shouldn’t do it here, where people can hear what I have to say to you…”
I moved my hands away from my face, and looked down to see Lunamon looking at me over its shoulder.
“Come on, let’s go!” It exclaimed, pointing to the exit. “You too, Alex Dimacuha.”
“Me?” Alex shouted, eyes wide as saucers. “W-What? Why?”
“Because I said so,” it says firmly, before walking towards the exit.
Lunamon managed to waddle to the door, and began to reach up for the handle. It was only about a foot tall, maybe a few inches taller, so it just waved its tiny little paws in the air, hoping that a swat of its arm would hit the handle. I groaned, and walked up to it, Alex following close behind.
“Let me hold you,” I said while holding my arms out, and Lunamon glared at me, anger burning in those huge eyes. “Listen, I know you value your independence but you’re not gonna be able to walk around without getting squished.”
Lunamon sighed, before walking closer to me. I quickly bent down, and picked it up, resting the digimon in my arms.
“How the hell did you even get in here if you couldn’t open that door?”
“I followed someone in,” it sneered, squirming in my arms.
I pushed my hand out to open the door, before looking back at Sadie who seemed to be just as nervous as she was before.
“Have a good night, Sadie,” I said with a smile. “I’ll tell you about this in the morning.”
She nodded, looking awfully pale, hand clutching the desk as if she would have crumbled without it. I knew I had to say something to reassure her that I wasn’t in danger, but I just didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry too much about me,” I said with a plastered-on smile. “I’ll be fine.”
I doubt she believed me, but at that point, I had slipped through the door and couldn’t tell what her expression was.
The entrance hall to our office building was one-part monument to the accomplishments of the companies that worked within its massive steel walls, four-parts a kitschy tourist trap meant to get tourists to empty their pockets. Most of the walls are covered with a light-brown wood, except the wall behind me which had a glass screen covering the wall. Projected onto the screen were little animations of people, almost appearing perfectly real if someone looked from the right angle. They were rushing about in long white coats, surrounded by weather equipment that seemed to spin in an non-existent wind.
I must look ridiculous, I thought to myself. A grown buisnesswoman walking with a fucking digimon rabbit cradled in her arms. Who the fuck did I piss off to deserve such humilation? I could feel the stares of tourists on me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a young girl tug on the sleeve of her mother, finger pointed towards me.
I started to walk faster, the clicks from my shoe’s heels against the stone floor sounding loud and irritating in my ears. God, just let this shit end!
After what felt to me like an endless nightmare, we pushed through the glass doors out into the street, stunned for a moment by the overwhelming street noise. It was still bright out, thank god, but the sun had begun to sink, tinting all the buildings a light purple. The sidewalk was flooded with people shambling home, either from work or from school, and Arch Street congested as usual.
Lunamon flinched in my arms, and covered its ears with its paws. Its eyes were shut tight, and it’s body trembled.
I guess the Digital World or whatever is pretty quiet, I mused to myself. Poor little thing.
I shook my head quickly. Don’t pity it, that’s just one step closer to attachment. Let’s just get this shit over with.
As I leaned against the building, I began to think. So, Lunamon doesn’t like city noise, okay fine. Not a lot of people do at first, but that means we can’t sit at a street corner or one of the parks in Logan Square to try and wring out information from this thing. I don’t want to meet in my apartment, that would be… weird to do with a guy I just met, and I’m sure that it’ll remove his apartment from the equation as well...
A restaurant would work, wouldn’t it? I’m starving, so eating something before having my ear talked off would be good. But, all the places around here are rather… high class. The waitress would notice, the cops would be called, and both of us would be under Uncle Sam’s eye… Not an ideal place for anyone, especially me.
I groaned, mouth turning up in a sneer. I wanted to smoke so bad right now. Fuck past-me for deciding to quit this year.
“So, I’m fucking stumped,” I said, turning to Alex, who looked bewildered. “If you have any clue on where we should discuss whatever our little friend here has to say, I’m all ears.”
Alex rubbed his chin, his face scrunched up and eyes looking out into the distance. Suddenly, he pointed at me, face breaking out into a grin.
“I got a place.”
_____
“Seriously?” I asked, placing my tray of food down with a clatter. “This is the place? Mickey D’s?”
Alex sat in the booth, scooting over to let Lunamon crawl onto the seat.
“Well, yeah,” he said with a smile, cheeseburger in hand. “Where else could we sit down and not be looked at? Do you think this is the weirdest thing they’ve seen within like the past three hours?”
“I used to do all my homework here, in college. Stayed for hours and hours, even took naps sometimes. No one noticed a thing.”
I grumbled underneath my breath, shoving a fry in my mouth. He’s not wrong, like, at all, but it’s still kinda weird. Two businessmen in a McDonalds, the only other inhabitants being a group of teenage boys chatting up one of the cashiers, and an old man who seemed transfixed by the type of wallpaper pasted on the walls.
It didn’t help that this place was probably the worst McDonalds I had ever stepped foot in. The air felt heavy no matter where you stood, and the heat was awful. The building had no air conditioning for whatever reason, and the mixture of the standard muggy heat of Philly in June with the heat of the fryers and stoves made the whole room feel oddly sticky. Perhaps that’s why the floor seemed to have some sort of tacky substance that made my shoes stick to the floor, or maybe that was just bad upkeep in general. The cushions on the backs of the seats had faded, making the yellow a faded greenish color, and when I rested against them I felt the back of the chair more than the cushion itself.
I sat down, even though I felt my hackles rise at the idea of sitting somewhere so… filthy. I looked over at Lunamon, who had grabbed a cheeseburger, and was staring at it intensely. Slowly, one of its claws reached out to lift at the bun, moving closer to examine it.
“Two hands,” I said, and mimed out grabbing and eating a hamburger. “Like that.”
Lunamon stared at me, before gingerly grabbing the cheeseburger and biting down with its tiny little fangs.
“Your human food is quite good, Camille Tologanak,” Lunamon declared, as I grabbed my Big Mac.
“Just Camille is fine, no need to bring my last name into this,” I groaned, before taking a bite from my burger. “So, now that we’re settled, what did you want to discuss?”
Lunamon blinked at me, before reaching underneath its fur. It placed two objects onto the tray with a thunk, before it sat back in its seat. It stared at me for a moment, before gesturing with its paw for me to take them. I grabbed both of them, then looked down at them.
Both of them were rather strange gifts. The weirdest one was some sort of computer device in a sort of rounded triangular shape, with a round screen and a D-pad towards the bottom of it. There was a strap on the top of it, and both it and the border around the screen were a bright orange color. It looked a lot like some sort of toy my mother would’ve given me when I was nine as a gift, and brought a kind of comforting nostalgia to me.
The other gift was a silver ring, with some odd symbols etched into it. I flipped it over, trying to decipher any meaning, but I had no such luck. There was an odd orange gemstone placed in the front that sparkled in the fluorescent lighting. When I slipped the ring on, I found that it fit perfectly. Not too tight, not too loose. That kind of freaked me out.
“So… What are all those things?” Alex asked, looking between me and Lunamon.
“I think one of them is my digivice,” I stated, staring at it closely. “Not sure why I got a ring though.”
“A digivice? What is that?”
“It’s like… a device that gives power to digimon. I think, at least.”
I paused to eat my burger. It’s almost done now. I hadn’t noticed that I was eating it so quickly. Must’ve been nerves, I thought.
“God, if this happened when I was nine, I could tell you straight away what it does,” I groaned, rubbing my brow with my index finger. “I would’ve also been jumping off the walls about all of this.”
“You’re mostly right, Camille,” Lunamon says, stealing some of my fries.
“Are… you going to elaborate on that?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Okay,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Well that's just my luck. I become a tamer sixteen years too late, and the digimon I get is evasive as fuck.”
“You’re not a tamer!” Lunamon growls, slamming the table. “I’m not a digimon that you just… tamed! We’re partners! This digivice is proof of our partnership!”
I blinked. Lunamon scowled at me with its arms crossed, fangs visible.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My bad. We’re partners, then.”
Despite everything, I understood why Lunamon was upset by this. It-No, they were sentient, and for all accounts had the same emotional intelligence and intellect as Alex and I did. Sure they were confused and scared by Philadelphia and a cheeseburger, but I was sure I would be just as confused if I was thrown into the Digital World randomly one day. Doesn’t mean that someone should throw a collar on me and call me “tamed”.
So, I stretched my hand out to Lunamon, resting it on the table.
They stared at me, then my hand, then back to me.
“What are you doing?” they asked, shifting in their seat.
“At my job, if two people decide to work together, they shake hands,” I explained. “We’re working together as partners, right? So, why don’t we shake hands?”
Lunamon blinked, then took one of my fingers into their paw. We shook hands, and I sat down. The digimon seemed to be in better spirits, a small smile on their face.
“So,” I said, leaning back against the chair with a thunk. “Why now? Why me?”
“I can’t answer the first one,” Lunamon said. “That’s knowledge only the Sovereign knows, not any of us. I was only told that you are my partner, and that I should speak with Alex Dimacuha too. There’s plans involving him.”
“‘Plans for me’, huh?” Alex said, rubbing his chin.
“Well, that kind of leads into my other question,” I said, and rested my head on my hands. “Why did you come back now? There hasn’t been a digimon sighting in sixteen years, and then all of a sudden, boom. Digimon in our front office.”
“Yeah,” Alex nodded, putting a fry in his mouth. “Wasn’t the D-Reaper the last time anyone saw you guys?”
“Yes,” Lunamon said with a nod, closing their eyes. “Our worlds were separated that day…”
“It obviously wasn’t permanent, was it?” I asked, and Lunamon sighed.
“No, it wasn’t. It was inevitable, truly. You humans kept expanding the internet, connecting more and more, evolving it more and more. The barriers began to weaken.”
“I see,” I said, drumming my hands on the table. “So, because of the Digital World and the real world’s barriers eroding, the Sovereign chose digimon to partner with humans so that…?”
“There’s already significant holes in the walls between our worlds, Camille. I’m probably not the first digimon in the real world right now! The Sovereign has no idea how digimon and humans will interact with a wide open gash that digimon can just spill out of.”
“You and I,” Lunamon said with a grin. “We will serve as protectors and mediators for digimon and humans.”
What, I thought to myself, what are they saying? Me? A mediator? What kind of mess have I been sprung into?! I barely remember shit about digimon, and I know little to nothing about what goes on in Philadelphia. I just moved here!
“That’s the purpose of the ring. Humans can’t inflict damage onto digimon. But… with that ring’s power, you can fight alongside me.”
My headache was back again, and it felt worse. Like someone threw me against a wall. I groaned, slumping against the table.
“What’s the matter, Camille?” Lunamon asked, crawling onto the table. “Are you sick?”
“No, I just have a headache. Today feels like a lot of things thrown at me at once.”
Part of me snarled that I should’ve immediately turned it down. Screamed at Lunamon to leave my sight and find some kid off the street to give this mission to. But who would Lunamon choose then? What if they decided to use this power to hurt people, to force the people around them to bend to their will?
Face it, a voice in my head growled, you’re stuck with this job. Just like you got stuck with fucking investment banking.
As if on cue, there was a sudden chime from the digivice. It sounded like a metallic bell, ding-ding, and it rang in quick succession twice.
“Attention, attention,” A robotic voice of a woman read out, “Hostile digimon presence detected.”
“Oh come on,” I groaned, looking down at the device in my hand. “Can’t I get one break today?”
It didn’t respond to my pleading, only proceeded to read out the same message in Japanese, then in Mandarin. Then, back to the bell.
Oh no, don’t stop there, I snarked to myself, read it out in Inuinnaqtun, too. That’ll really get my attention.
“Camille, check where it is,” Lunamon said, and tried to give them the most confused expression I could muster.
“The D-Pad! Use the D-Pad!”
I pressed the down button, and the screen suddenly lit up blue. There was a map, a primitive one, but I could make out the white outlines of what I assumed to be streets and buildings. There was a red arrow pointing off to the left, making a low pinging noise. The arrow moved slightly if my hand tilted from one way to the other, and I experimented with this for a few moments, before Lunamon slapped my hand.
“Come on!”
I rubbed my hand, surprised at how hard Lunamon hit me. I stood up though, grabbing the bag of McDonalds in one hand and Lunamon in the other, who helped me out by crawling into my arms this time. Alex quickly rushed to put the tray away, waving to the cashier. I don’t think she even looked up at him.
I guess he was right about no one noticing us
1.
Immaterial
It was about five minutes before the office closed for the night when my cell phone had begun to ring. I had been sitting back on my office chair for the past hour or so, the heel of my dress shoes digging into the desk. I was barely paying attention to the computer which was open to an article about the sixteenth anniversary of the D-Reaper attacks on Tokyo, my eyes shut and my hand over my eyes, and at first I just sat there in silence as my phone vibrated against the desk.
“Camille,” my coworker, Mike, nudged me on the shoulder with a pale hand. “Your phone. It’s ringing.”
“Ugh, fuck,” I grunted, sitting up quickly. “Jesus Christ they’re really running it close.”
I grabbed it quickly, only to tilt my head at who’s calling. It’s the front desk, and right now, my mind blanks on the reason or who needed me.
I answered the phone regardless.
“Sadie, hello,” I said, faking a happy tone. “What do you need me for?”
“Camille?” The receptionist asked, and I could immediately tell something was wrong by the shakiness in her voice. “Are you in the building?”
“Yes, yes I am,” I responded, anxiety already beginning to seep up towards my throat. “What’s wrong? Is it my parents?”
“No… No it’s…” She stumbled over her words, and started talking away from the phone. I could hear what sounds like an older man speaking to her, but not what he was saying.
“Sadie? Are you there?” I asked, my voice sounding higher in my ears. I ran a hand through my dark hair, fingers getting stuck in dried hairspray.
“Could you come down to reception?” Sadie asked slowly, her voice unsure. “There’s someone here who wants to speak to you. It’s urgent.”
“I’ll be right down,” I said, and hung up the phone. I stared blankly at my desk for a few moments, looking over the dark wood making up my desk.
What was going on? My family and friends were far away from where I worked. It would’ve been a several hour trip down to visit me, and there… wasn’t any reason too. So who..?
It was several minutes before I noticed that Mike was trying to get my attention.
“What was that Camille?” He asked, green eyes wide. “You’re pale as a sheet. Did someone-”
“No, no,” I responded, waving my hand in an attempt to dissuade him. “Someone needs to speak to me. Right before I’m fucking off for the night too.”
Mike did not seem convinced in the slightest. Still, he did not stop me as I gathered up my things, and shut off my computer.
“Listen,” he said as I stood up to leave. “If you need to talk to anyone…”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll be fine. Probably just some sale I fucked up.”
Even if it isn’t, I had thought to myself, I’m not gonna use some dude I work with as a free therapist. That’s just sticking my fucking neck out. I don’t want that shit.
And with that, I walked out of the office, shutting the door behind me. Quickly, I adjusted my tie slightly, straightening out the creased sleeves of my suit jacket before walking briskly towards the elevator. There were a few people I knew, some people I worked on projects with, some I knew from the cafeteria, but I was too busy reeling over that fucking phonecall to do anything beyond a wave, feet moving on autopilot.
I was broken out of my thoughts as I pushed into the elevator, slamming into the only person inside. There was a clatter, as something fell to the floor, hitting the metal floor.
“Shit,” I growled underneath my breath, dropping to my knees to grab whatever I had knocked away. “Fuck me, dude…”
My hand grabbed a small metallic foil package, placing it in the middle of my palm as I stood up. I flipped it over, and noticed that familiar blue-and-orange logo, and a familiar yellow dinosaur below it, bellowing fire. This was...
I quickly looked over at the person who I ran into. He looked about my age, wide, somewhat thick hands that were rubbing the base of his nose, and I noticed that he was only wearing a dress shirt and black slacks. Probably in another department, investment people like me always had to have a suit jacket and tie on, even in June. His hair was dark, cropped short in a way that made it flare out towards the front, a hairstyle I had seen all over the city. The man’s eyes were shut tight, round face set in a painful grimace.
“I’m so sorry,” I said as the elevator doors shut. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, how stupid of me…”
“It’s fine,” he groaned, finally opening their eyes.
I held out the Digimon card pack to him, and they took it from my hand with a weak smile and a muttered ‘thank you’. I stepped towards the far end of the elevator car, before it started to descend.
“So,” I asked, turning my head towards him. “What’s up with the Digimon cards? You a fan?”
He looked back at me, a curious look in his face. I expected him to get embarrassed about it, or sort of flustered, but nothing on his face betrayed any sort of emotion.
“No,” he says, a slight smile on his face. “It’s for my cousin’s birthday. I bought it while on lunch break.”
“Ah,” I responded, rubbing at my nose. “Well, it’s nice to hear that some things still stay the same…”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was a little Digimon superstar back in the day,” I grinned, and watched the man’s eyebrows raise. “Beat all the kids in the schoolyard. Maybe if I had kept up with it, I would’ve ended up like those kids in Tokyo.”
“Oh really?” He said, looking down at the card pack, then back to me.
I nodded, and a soft, warm sort of sadness settled in my heart, curling in on itself. I thought of wide-open blue skies, the ocean crashing against rocky cliffs, and a young boy with messy black hair, looking up at me, holding out a card to me...
Hideki…
“Hey, uh,” the man suddenly said, and I snapped back to reality. “This, uh… this wasn’t supposed to be all I’m giving him.”
“He’s really into this Digimon game now, and apparently it’s becoming more of a… serious competitive game I think?”
I felt my eyebrows raise. Competitive Digimon…? So, tournaments, players, and cash prizes… I barely kept myself from grinning mischievously. This could be an interesting hobby for me, well, whenever the job left me free time.
“I barely know anything about it,” the man laughed, rubbing his thumb. “Neither do any of my friends. I know we barely know each other, but you seem to know more than me... Could you help me out on this tomorrow? At lunch maybe?”
Without thinking, I nodded quickly. I did kind of owe him in a way after slamming into him, face first. Plus, I hated to admit it, but eating sushi alone in the food court was extremely pathetic looking for someone like me.
“Sure,” I smiled back at him, before stretching out my hand. “I’m Camille.”
“Oh, uh,” the man stammered, grabbing my hand. “I’m Alex. Nice to meet you.”
I nodded and shook his hand firmly. Alex doesn’t sound like a bad guy, I thought to myself. It’d be good for me to actually have more friends here. Connections to rely on later.
The elevator chimes, and both of us get out of the elevator car. I still had a little ways to go to the front office, and the anxiety crept back up onto me. Alex was walking beside me still, hands shoved in his pockets. I guess we had been heading in the same direction.
Dumbass, part of me snarled, of course he was. It’s seven. He’s leaving for the night. People are leaving now, and you’re in fucking limbo because some idiot decided they needed to speak with you right before the building closed.
I had let out a breath of air through my teeth, the noise sounding like a hiss. Whatever this is, there better be something good in it for me. Fuckin’ hell.
With a few more steps, I walked through a door and ended standing in front of the reception desk. Sadie was standing off to the side of it, her pale hands clasped in an odd fashion, hunched over slightly. She was staring at me, then Alex, then a strange little plush doll sitting on a chair on the other side of the room.
The thing on the chair, what I could make of it from where I stood, was a pinkish-white doll of a rabbit-like creature, posed in a way that made it look like it was sitting perfectly upright. However, I noted, it has two pairs of ears, with odd purple stripes on both of them, and what appeared to be a pink ribbon across its little body, the bottom of which resembled the bottom of a dress more than an actual rabbit’s lower body.
My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at the thing sitting there. Is this some sort of prank? Maybe it was, I thought, I’ve only been with the company for what? Two months? Maybe it’s some fucked up way to get at the new girl, some sort of hazing.
I looked over to Sadie, eyebrow raised, but she showed no hints of amusement. If she was pranking me, she was a pretty damn good actor.
“Miss Laskier?” Alex asked nervously, looking over at the doll. “What’s the matter?”
All of the sudden, I watched the doll’s head whip towards me, its red eyes staring at me.
I cried out, falling to the ground. The thing, undeterred by my reaction, grabbed the arms of the chair and slid onto the floor. I watched, my limbs frozen to the floor as it walked towards me, its stubby arms on its hips.
“What the fuck are you?!” I screamed, my mouth the only part of me working. “Get the fuck away from me!”
“Relax Camille Tologanak,” it spoke, its voice thick with a New Jersey accent. A familiar one, one that sounded like a certain older male actor I had heard on television recently, and part of me nearly started laughing. “Cal-”
“Alex, Sadie, please tell me I’m making this up,” I begged, finally wobbling back to my feet. “Please tell me there isn’t a rabbit doll here speaking with the voice of Danny DeVito right here. Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”
“You’re not hallucinating, Camille Tologanak,” Sadie said, walking towards me. “H-He came in asking for you a half hour ago…”
I whimpered, holding my head in my hands. I felt Alex cautiously putting a hand on my back, and I didn’t stop him.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly rude?” The thing asked, walking right up to my feet and glaring at me. “There’s no need for you to interrupt me and insult me like that.”
“Well, respectfully sir,” Alex said, kneeling down to look the creature in the eyes much like someone would do with a cat. “We don't… usually see things like you around here. Please forgive us.”
The creature stared at Alex, its gaze softening a little. My head felt like someone was pressing their thumbs against the sides, slowly putting more pressure onto it before it popped like a squeezed grape.
“How do you know my name?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Who are you?”
This garnered a smile from the creature, and it put its paw forward.
“I am Lunamon, agent of the Sovereign,” it says proudly. “From this day forward, we are partners!”
I felt sick. Past the shock of both having this thrown onto me at random, and the fact that as far as I knew this was the first sighting of a digimon in the real world in sixteen years, there was a sudden bolt of childish excitement. A digimon wanted to be partnered with me! This had been my childhood dream for years! Both of those feelings churned in my gut, and covered my eyes with my hand.
What would Hideki think of me now, I thought to myself, balking at the idea of becoming a tamer...
“We have much to discuss,” Lunamon continues, and I could hear it walking away from me. “But we shouldn’t do it here, where people can hear what I have to say to you…”
I moved my hands away from my face, and looked down to see Lunamon looking at me over its shoulder.
“Come on, let’s go!” It exclaimed, pointing to the exit. “You too, Alex Dimacuha.”
“Me?” Alex shouted, eyes wide as saucers. “W-What? Why?”
“Because I said so,” it says firmly, before walking towards the exit.
Lunamon managed to waddle to the door, and began to reach up for the handle. It was only about a foot tall, maybe a few inches taller, so it just waved its tiny little paws in the air, hoping that a swat of its arm would hit the handle. I groaned, and walked up to it, Alex following close behind.
“Let me hold you,” I said while holding my arms out, and Lunamon glared at me, anger burning in those huge eyes. “Listen, I know you value your independence but you’re not gonna be able to walk around without getting squished.”
Lunamon sighed, before walking closer to me. I quickly bent down, and picked it up, resting the digimon in my arms.
“How the hell did you even get in here if you couldn’t open that door?”
“I followed someone in,” it sneered, squirming in my arms.
I pushed my hand out to open the door, before looking back at Sadie who seemed to be just as nervous as she was before.
“Have a good night, Sadie,” I said with a smile. “I’ll tell you about this in the morning.”
She nodded, looking awfully pale, hand clutching the desk as if she would have crumbled without it. I knew I had to say something to reassure her that I wasn’t in danger, but I just didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry too much about me,” I said with a plastered-on smile. “I’ll be fine.”
I doubt she believed me, but at that point, I had slipped through the door and couldn’t tell what her expression was.
The entrance hall to our office building was one-part monument to the accomplishments of the companies that worked within its massive steel walls, four-parts a kitschy tourist trap meant to get tourists to empty their pockets. Most of the walls are covered with a light-brown wood, except the wall behind me which had a glass screen covering the wall. Projected onto the screen were little animations of people, almost appearing perfectly real if someone looked from the right angle. They were rushing about in long white coats, surrounded by weather equipment that seemed to spin in an non-existent wind.
I must look ridiculous, I thought to myself. A grown buisnesswoman walking with a fucking digimon rabbit cradled in her arms. Who the fuck did I piss off to deserve such humilation? I could feel the stares of tourists on me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a young girl tug on the sleeve of her mother, finger pointed towards me.
I started to walk faster, the clicks from my shoe’s heels against the stone floor sounding loud and irritating in my ears. God, just let this shit end!
After what felt to me like an endless nightmare, we pushed through the glass doors out into the street, stunned for a moment by the overwhelming street noise. It was still bright out, thank god, but the sun had begun to sink, tinting all the buildings a light purple. The sidewalk was flooded with people shambling home, either from work or from school, and Arch Street congested as usual.
Lunamon flinched in my arms, and covered its ears with its paws. Its eyes were shut tight, and it’s body trembled.
I guess the Digital World or whatever is pretty quiet, I mused to myself. Poor little thing.
I shook my head quickly. Don’t pity it, that’s just one step closer to attachment. Let’s just get this shit over with.
As I leaned against the building, I began to think. So, Lunamon doesn’t like city noise, okay fine. Not a lot of people do at first, but that means we can’t sit at a street corner or one of the parks in Logan Square to try and wring out information from this thing. I don’t want to meet in my apartment, that would be… weird to do with a guy I just met, and I’m sure that it’ll remove his apartment from the equation as well...
A restaurant would work, wouldn’t it? I’m starving, so eating something before having my ear talked off would be good. But, all the places around here are rather… high class. The waitress would notice, the cops would be called, and both of us would be under Uncle Sam’s eye… Not an ideal place for anyone, especially me.
I groaned, mouth turning up in a sneer. I wanted to smoke so bad right now. Fuck past-me for deciding to quit this year.
“So, I’m fucking stumped,” I said, turning to Alex, who looked bewildered. “If you have any clue on where we should discuss whatever our little friend here has to say, I’m all ears.”
Alex rubbed his chin, his face scrunched up and eyes looking out into the distance. Suddenly, he pointed at me, face breaking out into a grin.
“I got a place.”
_____
“Seriously?” I asked, placing my tray of food down with a clatter. “This is the place? Mickey D’s?”
Alex sat in the booth, scooting over to let Lunamon crawl onto the seat.
“Well, yeah,” he said with a smile, cheeseburger in hand. “Where else could we sit down and not be looked at? Do you think this is the weirdest thing they’ve seen within like the past three hours?”
“I used to do all my homework here, in college. Stayed for hours and hours, even took naps sometimes. No one noticed a thing.”
I grumbled underneath my breath, shoving a fry in my mouth. He’s not wrong, like, at all, but it’s still kinda weird. Two businessmen in a McDonalds, the only other inhabitants being a group of teenage boys chatting up one of the cashiers, and an old man who seemed transfixed by the type of wallpaper pasted on the walls.
It didn’t help that this place was probably the worst McDonalds I had ever stepped foot in. The air felt heavy no matter where you stood, and the heat was awful. The building had no air conditioning for whatever reason, and the mixture of the standard muggy heat of Philly in June with the heat of the fryers and stoves made the whole room feel oddly sticky. Perhaps that’s why the floor seemed to have some sort of tacky substance that made my shoes stick to the floor, or maybe that was just bad upkeep in general. The cushions on the backs of the seats had faded, making the yellow a faded greenish color, and when I rested against them I felt the back of the chair more than the cushion itself.
I sat down, even though I felt my hackles rise at the idea of sitting somewhere so… filthy. I looked over at Lunamon, who had grabbed a cheeseburger, and was staring at it intensely. Slowly, one of its claws reached out to lift at the bun, moving closer to examine it.
“Two hands,” I said, and mimed out grabbing and eating a hamburger. “Like that.”
Lunamon stared at me, before gingerly grabbing the cheeseburger and biting down with its tiny little fangs.
“Your human food is quite good, Camille Tologanak,” Lunamon declared, as I grabbed my Big Mac.
“Just Camille is fine, no need to bring my last name into this,” I groaned, before taking a bite from my burger. “So, now that we’re settled, what did you want to discuss?”
Lunamon blinked at me, before reaching underneath its fur. It placed two objects onto the tray with a thunk, before it sat back in its seat. It stared at me for a moment, before gesturing with its paw for me to take them. I grabbed both of them, then looked down at them.
Both of them were rather strange gifts. The weirdest one was some sort of computer device in a sort of rounded triangular shape, with a round screen and a D-pad towards the bottom of it. There was a strap on the top of it, and both it and the border around the screen were a bright orange color. It looked a lot like some sort of toy my mother would’ve given me when I was nine as a gift, and brought a kind of comforting nostalgia to me.
The other gift was a silver ring, with some odd symbols etched into it. I flipped it over, trying to decipher any meaning, but I had no such luck. There was an odd orange gemstone placed in the front that sparkled in the fluorescent lighting. When I slipped the ring on, I found that it fit perfectly. Not too tight, not too loose. That kind of freaked me out.
“So… What are all those things?” Alex asked, looking between me and Lunamon.
“I think one of them is my digivice,” I stated, staring at it closely. “Not sure why I got a ring though.”
“A digivice? What is that?”
“It’s like… a device that gives power to digimon. I think, at least.”
I paused to eat my burger. It’s almost done now. I hadn’t noticed that I was eating it so quickly. Must’ve been nerves, I thought.
“God, if this happened when I was nine, I could tell you straight away what it does,” I groaned, rubbing my brow with my index finger. “I would’ve also been jumping off the walls about all of this.”
“You’re mostly right, Camille,” Lunamon says, stealing some of my fries.
“Are… you going to elaborate on that?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Okay,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Well that's just my luck. I become a tamer sixteen years too late, and the digimon I get is evasive as fuck.”
“You’re not a tamer!” Lunamon growls, slamming the table. “I’m not a digimon that you just… tamed! We’re partners! This digivice is proof of our partnership!”
I blinked. Lunamon scowled at me with its arms crossed, fangs visible.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My bad. We’re partners, then.”
Despite everything, I understood why Lunamon was upset by this. It-No, they were sentient, and for all accounts had the same emotional intelligence and intellect as Alex and I did. Sure they were confused and scared by Philadelphia and a cheeseburger, but I was sure I would be just as confused if I was thrown into the Digital World randomly one day. Doesn’t mean that someone should throw a collar on me and call me “tamed”.
So, I stretched my hand out to Lunamon, resting it on the table.
They stared at me, then my hand, then back to me.
“What are you doing?” they asked, shifting in their seat.
“At my job, if two people decide to work together, they shake hands,” I explained. “We’re working together as partners, right? So, why don’t we shake hands?”
Lunamon blinked, then took one of my fingers into their paw. We shook hands, and I sat down. The digimon seemed to be in better spirits, a small smile on their face.
“So,” I said, leaning back against the chair with a thunk. “Why now? Why me?”
“I can’t answer the first one,” Lunamon said. “That’s knowledge only the Sovereign knows, not any of us. I was only told that you are my partner, and that I should speak with Alex Dimacuha too. There’s plans involving him.”
“‘Plans for me’, huh?” Alex said, rubbing his chin.
“Well, that kind of leads into my other question,” I said, and rested my head on my hands. “Why did you come back now? There hasn’t been a digimon sighting in sixteen years, and then all of a sudden, boom. Digimon in our front office.”
“Yeah,” Alex nodded, putting a fry in his mouth. “Wasn’t the D-Reaper the last time anyone saw you guys?”
“Yes,” Lunamon said with a nod, closing their eyes. “Our worlds were separated that day…”
“It obviously wasn’t permanent, was it?” I asked, and Lunamon sighed.
“No, it wasn’t. It was inevitable, truly. You humans kept expanding the internet, connecting more and more, evolving it more and more. The barriers began to weaken.”
“I see,” I said, drumming my hands on the table. “So, because of the Digital World and the real world’s barriers eroding, the Sovereign chose digimon to partner with humans so that…?”
“There’s already significant holes in the walls between our worlds, Camille. I’m probably not the first digimon in the real world right now! The Sovereign has no idea how digimon and humans will interact with a wide open gash that digimon can just spill out of.”
“You and I,” Lunamon said with a grin. “We will serve as protectors and mediators for digimon and humans.”
What, I thought to myself, what are they saying? Me? A mediator? What kind of mess have I been sprung into?! I barely remember shit about digimon, and I know little to nothing about what goes on in Philadelphia. I just moved here!
“That’s the purpose of the ring. Humans can’t inflict damage onto digimon. But… with that ring’s power, you can fight alongside me.”
My headache was back again, and it felt worse. Like someone threw me against a wall. I groaned, slumping against the table.
“What’s the matter, Camille?” Lunamon asked, crawling onto the table. “Are you sick?”
“No, I just have a headache. Today feels like a lot of things thrown at me at once.”
Part of me snarled that I should’ve immediately turned it down. Screamed at Lunamon to leave my sight and find some kid off the street to give this mission to. But who would Lunamon choose then? What if they decided to use this power to hurt people, to force the people around them to bend to their will?
Face it, a voice in my head growled, you’re stuck with this job. Just like you got stuck with fucking investment banking.
As if on cue, there was a sudden chime from the digivice. It sounded like a metallic bell, ding-ding, and it rang in quick succession twice.
“Attention, attention,” A robotic voice of a woman read out, “Hostile digimon presence detected.”
“Oh come on,” I groaned, looking down at the device in my hand. “Can’t I get one break today?”
It didn’t respond to my pleading, only proceeded to read out the same message in Japanese, then in Mandarin. Then, back to the bell.
Oh no, don’t stop there, I snarked to myself, read it out in Inuinnaqtun, too. That’ll really get my attention.
“Camille, check where it is,” Lunamon said, and tried to give them the most confused expression I could muster.
“The D-Pad! Use the D-Pad!”
I pressed the down button, and the screen suddenly lit up blue. There was a map, a primitive one, but I could make out the white outlines of what I assumed to be streets and buildings. There was a red arrow pointing off to the left, making a low pinging noise. The arrow moved slightly if my hand tilted from one way to the other, and I experimented with this for a few moments, before Lunamon slapped my hand.
“Come on!”
I rubbed my hand, surprised at how hard Lunamon hit me. I stood up though, grabbing the bag of McDonalds in one hand and Lunamon in the other, who helped me out by crawling into my arms this time. Alex quickly rushed to put the tray away, waving to the cashier. I don’t think she even looked up at him.
I guess he was right about no one noticing us
