Eiji headed straight for Professor Ryusenji’s office after his reunion with Leon in the DDL café.
“Morning! Everything’s running a bit behind today. Just by 15 minutes or so,” the professor said through mouthfuls of a late lunch as he worked on the latest Digimon analysis.
The study of Digimon was seemingly never-ending, and encompassed myriad fields: the biological study and classification of Digimon, the use of Digimon as AI tools for systems engineering, the environmental study of the Digital world itself, and sociological studies of Digimon’s impact on humans were all underway.
And yet there was Professor Ryusenji, constantly pushing the research forward and seeking to experience the Digital World firsthand.
What is study without observation and collection?
“Oh, sorry for interrupting then,” Eiji said hurriedly to show his contrition.
“Not at all! One of my students is coming by later.”
“A student?”
“Well, former student.”
It probably wasn’t Leon, in other words. Eiji let out a sigh of relief.
“The SoC’s... Uh, the details of the X nation’s data server are exactly as described in the report,” Eiji said.
“So they were after that state secret Digimon after all. The X nation lost their cyberterrorism weapon, but Machinedramon was also destroyed, which means the SoC’s big operation was a failure,” Ryusenji said, rattling off his assessment of the situation.
“Their leader, Tartarus. I think he’s collecting secret—well, Mega level Digimon. I don’t know why yet, but I somehow doubt they’re just an innocent collector.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“One of the SoC’s leaders, Marvin, was briefly incapacitated in the battle, but managed to recover. The whole mindlink limit thing... It feels a lot more real now that I’ve seen what can happen. It’s no joke.”
“Everyone makes mistakes under pressure, no matter how talented. Especially when things don’t go according to plan. Not even I’m immune to it,” the professor opined, turning his gaze toward Eiji.
“Totally! You panic, or see something you can hardly believe, and you make a poor judgment call, or...”
“Even the greatest shogi players will make poor decisions when they’ve only got one minute left on the clock. But in the heat of battle, the time spent mindlinking is more important than whether or not you’re fighting a Digimon with similar specs. You survived that fight with the hacker’s Digimon because you kept time on your side.”
“I guess that’s your way of saying we would’ve lost if we tried to fight them head-on,” Loogamon growled, looking dejected. As ever, Loogamon hated losing.
“Hm... Loogamon didn’t like that explanation, I see” the professor said, gesturing in the Digimon’s direction.
“Next time we’re gonna trounce that little static shock!”
“In order to do that, you’ll need to digivolve. To at least Ultimate level, for starters.”
“Ultimate form,” Loogamon said, eyes wide with excitement.
What would Loogamon’s Ultimate form even look like? Eiji had to ask.
“What will that look like, Professor?”
“Whatever form Loogamon takes, it won’t be right or wrong, just like all the creatures on earth that have evolved the way they have.”
Every creature was part of an ongoing experiment to see just what was possible with their evolutionary choices, the professor seemed to be suggesting.
“Sure. Hey, Eiji! Get me to my Ultimate form!” Loogamon barked excitedly.
“You got it!”
Eiji chirped, turning to face Loogamon.
“I’ve found valuable data on Machinedramon, whom you could easily call the worst Digimon terrorist in human history. I should have liked to capture it, even if that meant sorting through its scraps.”
“That hacker got in my way.”
“Mhm.”
“The hacker was—”
“I know. Leon Alexander. My student, and the hacker known as Judge,” Ryusenji said, bringing up a monitor with Kazuchimon’s picture on it.
Eiji let out another little sigh of relief.
“You knew, but didn’t tell me? Here I was thinking I’d have to break the news to you, but I kept overthinking it and twisting myself in knots. I was just talking with Leo in—er, with Leon—in the café.”
“So you were.”
“Look... I’m not gonna get fired or anything, am I?”
“Why would I fire you?”
“Well, Leon doesn’t seem to think very highly of my being a code cracker.”
“What Leon does or doesn’t think about this or that has no bearing on my judgment of you, and never will,” Professor Ryusenji said sternly.
His was the final word, he said in so many words.
“Phew, I am so glad to hear you say that!”
Eiji exhaled; he was finally at ease. The idea that he would lose his job over a friendship from elementary school was pretty ridiculous, now that he thought about it.
“Now, putting all that aside, I have heard that you were the only one to whom he showed the Digimon and Digimon Dock that I gave him all those years ago, so all of this feels very...fated, in a way.”
“That’s right. I was pretty happy about that.”
Eiji, as it happened, had always been connected to the professor through Leon. He just wasn’t aware of it at the time.
“As you would be.”
“So um... I hate to sound like I’m reporting someone to the teacher, but he also said he didn’t like the thought of me coming in and out of your office. He thought it might tarnish your reputation to be seen working with a code cracker.”
“He’s...how shall I put this,” Professor Ryusenji hesitated, his fingers working through the air as if grasping for the right words.
“He’s...unique, but uncomplicated. I find that an admirable quality, and he’s always been that way.”
“Okay, so he’s got his own way of looking at things, and once he’s made up his mind, that’s it. That’s the ‘just’ answer,” Eiji said.
“Which ordinarily would get a child knocked down a peg. Told not to pretend to be nice, that sort of thing. But he was undeterred.”
“And now, as an adult, he has the power to smash through all that. In the real world, and on the network.”
Leon was a student at an elite school, a hacker working directly for Abadin Electronics, and powerful enough to control a Mega level Digimon.
He was flawless, compared to his peers.
“I didn’t mention anything about you hiring me to look into the SoC, of course, but I think he suspects something,” Eiji continued, reassuring Professor Ryusenji.
“Mhm.”
“So, um...”
“AHA! I get it now! You’re worried Leon thinks you got in the way of his work, but being my student you can’t very well engage him and take him out, so you’re wondering how to handle him. Yes, of course,” Professor Ryusenji flitted from point to point, furiously connecting dots.
“Well no, it’s not about fighting him, just—given the situation, he could leak that I’m spying on the SoC.”
From a hacker’s perspective, Eiji thought, an internecine quarrel in the SoC would be welcome.
“I’ll think about how to handle the hacker Judge. You just continue to—”
Professor Ryusenji was cut off by the phone in his office ringing.
His next appointment had arrived.
Eiji excused himself, cut the hololization, and returned Loogamon back to the Digimon Linker.
“I’ll just be getting on my waiiit a minute, I forgot to tell you I contacted Tartarus!”
Professor Ryusenji stopped to push the bridge of his glasses back up his nose at the news.
“And was Tartarus well?”
“I only heard their voice over chat. I heard a bunch of interesting tidbits, though. Like how on all the operations Tartarus has led, not a single person has gone DMIA, and that Tartarus is looking for a Black Agumon.”
A figure darkened the glass door of Professor Ryusenji’s office.
He motioned for them to come in.
Eiji passed Professor Ryusenji’s former student—a tall woman who sent a chill throughout Eiji’s body as soon as he saw her.
“Thank you, professor,” she said as Eiji hurried by her, head down.
She glanced at him as he whooshed past, but didn’t seem to pay him any mind.
He heard a faint “good morning” through the door as he left.
Eiji passed through the security checkpoint and made his way toward the reception desk in the lobby.
“Oh, hello Eiji. Good to see you, and thanks for the impromptu chat earlier,” Hatsune said, lifting her head up toward Eiji.
“Hey, you free tonight? Let’s go get some monjayaki!”
Loogamon’s voice rang out from the Digimon Linker.
“Shush! You’re not allowed to talk outside the checkpoint, remember?!”
Eiji whisper-yelled in a panic.
A few of the people waiting in the lobby turned to look at him.
He could feel their eyes on him, judging him for propositioning Hatsune so publicly.
“My goodness, your Digimon’s asked me out!”
Hatsune said with a giggle.
“Just saying what Eiji’s thinking, like a good little sidekick,” Loogamon said smugly.
“That’s enough outta you!”
Eiji snarled, muting his Digimon Linker.“Anyway Hatsune, uh—” he continued, desperate to regain control of the conversation, “That woman who just came to see Professor Ryusenji. She’s with the police, isn’t she?”
All it took was one look at her uniform, but he had to know for sure.
“Yeah,” Hatsune said, lowering her voice.
“Someone from the Digimon unit of the city police.”
“I knew it.”
She was probably from the DigiPolice. At least, that’s what Eiji’s code cracker instincts told him.
“Professor Ryusenji has a lot of influence with the police, so she comes by the lab every so often,” Hatsune whispered.
“He said she’s a former student of his.”
“Really? That’s news to me.”
“Do you know her name or anything?”
Eiji asked, his voice now barely audible.
“Yueling Shuu, Metropolitan Police Department. She’s tall and beautiful, I’ll give her that. Are you into older women, or something?”
Yueling Shuu... She was of Chinese descent, then, but Eiji guessed she had to be a Japanese citizen if she was on the police force.
He handed his pass over to Hatsune.
“So uh, Hatsu... How about that monja?” Eiji asked.
It was worth a shot; Loogamon had already opened the door.
Hatsune thought quietly for what felt like an eternity.
“Actually...” she began.
Eiji’s eyes widened.
“For you, sure. You’ve got a job, you seem decently mature, and truth be told I’ve got something I want to discuss with you. Here’s my GriMM handle.”
Eiji’s phone buzzed. It was a text message that read “HatsuneMocha.”
Eiji’s heart was pounding in his chest.
“Something you want to discuss, you said?”
“I’ll message you later. It’s something I can’t talk to anyone else about.”
The lights in Leon’s Denrin District Tower apartment came on and soft music began playing as he opened the door.
“What’ll it be? Food? A bath?” Pulsemon’s hololized form chirped.
“The heck?”
Leon asked, startled by Pulsemon’s hospitality.
“I picked it up from Loogamon. It’s polite to greet your superior when they come home.”
“Oh brother... You’re not my underling, Pulsemon.”
Besides, the security system, heating and cooling, water, electricity, and everything else in the apartment was connected to and managed through the network.
Leon relied on his Digimon more as an AI assistant than anything else, and he had something for Pulsemon to chew on.
“I do want you to look something up though. Search for—”
“The passenger manifest of WWW Flight 626, right?”
The massive monitor on the living room wall lit up with a complete list of the passengers.
Pulsemon had known Leon long enough to anticipate what he would ask for next; most Digimon who share a long history with their partner humans could anticipate their needs.
Whether it constituted an advanced AI learning a user’s patterns or was simply a Digimon being thoughtful was the source of furious debate.
“Was this what you wanted?” Pulsemon asked, watching Leon silently contemplate the list.
Leon set down his bag and emptied the contents of a smaller bag he’d received from the pharmacy onto a small tray.
He took out a bottle of water and downed the capsules with a swig from it.
“Yeah. Trauma,” Leon said quietly to himself.
“But I have to face it. Face my weak, immature past self. Search the passenger list.”
“Searching... Two hits for Japanese passengers. Cross-referencing with other records, I have no doubt they’re Mr. and Mrs. Nagasumi: Eiji’s parents.”
Leon cast his mind back to high school, when he was an up-and-coming hacker who’d begun mindlinking with Pulsemon.
“I have no right to interfere in Eiji’s life,” Leon said softly.
He couldn’t save Eiji’s parents.
He tried, but he was inexperienced. Even so...
“But he has to give up code cracking. It’s just not right. Even if it makes him hate me for it,” Leon said, working through his thoughts, sharpening his resolve.
He would martyr himself for justice if it came to it.
He had to, as a hacker. He could not abide lawlessness.
Live, resolutely.
“Leon,” Pulsemon said quietly, “Are we going to fight Loogamon?”
“If Eiji won’t give up code cracking.”
“Gotcha, gotcha.”
“We’ve picked a fight with the SoC. They certainly won’t back down. Hackers and code crackers are going to settle this on the network, once and for all.”
Eiji awoke to the sound of voices. A number of women were gathered in front of the post office next door, chatting excitedly.
He groaned and checked the time on his Digimon Linker. There was no point in getting up if it was too early.
“Awake at last, Eiji?”
“Morning, Loogamon. Any messages for me?” Eiji asked, looking for Loogamon.
He wasn’t up in the loft, which meant he was down below.
“You can check them yourself.”
“Alright, alright,” Eiji muttered, picking up his phone without so much as sitting up.
He scrolled through the latest topics of conversation on GriMM.
It felt like there were more DMs every day.
“Got a thank-you gift from Marvin. What a good guy. I should get him something in return.”
“You’ve got a message from Mocha on your public account.”
“Who’s Mocha?”
“The receptionist at DDL,” Loogamon said flatly.
Right, HatsuneMocha.
“You could’ve led with that! Forward it to me.”
“I think my boyfriend is cheating on me. I was wondering if you could do a bit of (quiet!) code cracking on his account for me...”
Loogamon said, intentionally conjuring the worst possible impression of Hatsune’s voice.
“I regret asking you, now,” Eiji said, deflated.
Of course she had a boyfriend. What a crummy way to start the morning.
What did she think code crackers were? Code cracking another person’s account was a crime. All downsides and risks, no possible benefits.
“Sounds like Mocha trusts you, at least,” Loogamon offered.
“That so?”
“Well, if you do find out he’s cheating they’ll break up, right? Then she’s single.”
“How am I taking dating advice from a Digimon?”
Eiji couldn’t believe the depths of Loogamon’s interest in human relationships.
“Oh, you’ve got one more message here. Looks like it’s from the Channel SoC mod. Marked important.”
“Huh, what’s that about?”
“Says it’s urgent.”
“Wait,” Eiji blurted out, finally processing what Loogamon had said. “The SoC mod—”
“The leader. Tartar Sauce, or whatever.”
“Lead with THAT next time, jeez! And if I ever get a message from them in the middle of the night, you wake me up!”
“Why? You’d be furious.”
“Argh, never mind!” Eiji huffed, furiously tapping his phone to get to his inbox.
Inside was a message from Tartarus, as Loogamon said.
“Holy crap, it’s really from Tartarus.”
It had to be, if it came from the channel mod’s account. There was no way it had been faked.
“Code Cracker Eiji, Your performance in the attack on the X nation’s data server was exemplary. Marvin thanks you from the bottom of his heart. We are happy to count such a talented code cracker among our ranks. We believe you are a Class A code cracker and would like to request your services once more.”
A personal request from the leader of the SoC? Already?
Eiji kept reading.
“As you’re aware, our operation was interrupted by a hacker and ended in failure. The X nation’s secret Digimon was also lost in the attack.”
No thanks to Judge, the hacker.
The message asked if Eiji would be able to exact revenge.
He would carry this out in the name of the SoC’s team of code crackers.
It didn’t matter how Eiji did it, so long as he smashed Judge’s reputation.
“This took a turn,” Eiji said quietly.
Not taking action against the hacker Judge risked the SoC’s reputation, the message argued.
It set a bad precedent and would brand the SoC as timid losers.
Organizations like the SoC couldn’t afford to be seen as weak in the Digital World if they were to make any money.
It was also a test of Eiji’s loyalty, directly from Tartarus.
If he refused, that was the end of it: Tartarus would begin to have doubts and keep Eiji at a distance.
“There we go! Tartarus will take notice if I manage to defeat Leon.”
It was the fastest way to ingratiate himself with the leader, by far, and would fulfill his duty to Professor Ryusenji.
“So you’re gonna fight him?” Loogamon asked.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Which means you hate him now? I thought he was your friend?”
Loogamon asked, perplexed.
“Don’t Digimon...? Okay, for example, you had help, didn’t you? You had friends in the 9th District, right?”
“They were my minions.”
“But they were on your side, right?”
“It was an alliance of convenience and nothing more. It gave us better chances of surviving in the Wall Slum,” Loogamon said, with the sneaking suspicion that that exact explanation described a type of friendship.
Even wild animals formed packs, whether with blood relations or not, in the struggle to survive.
Who was to say there weren’t friends among those packs?
“Well, what is a friend? There are friends of all different kinds, but someone who’s fun to be around is a pretty common response. But I think of a friend as someone you want to do something for. Even if it costs you something.”
“Even if it costs you?! I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Well sure. I never said that was how you’d see it,” Eiji replied.
This friend business sounded too much like playing on hard mode, Loogamon thought.
No, scratch that. Expert mode.
“But right now... I don’t want to do anything for Leon,” Eiji said, turning over onto his side.
The loft, lodged against the wall and not too far off the ceiling, suddenly felt coffin-like.
Leon had everything he could want.
Eiji was jealous, sure, but didn’t he have quite a lot going for him now, too?
He hated twisting himself in mental knots like this, and so stopped thinking about it.
“Hm. So I’ll have to fight Pulsemon.”
“Mega Kazuchimon, you mean. Does that bother you?”
Eiji asked without rolling over.
“No it doesn’t bother me! That little static shock always looks down on me, and I can’t wait to knock ‘em down a peg next time I see ‘em!”
“I know, right?! I’m not about to lose to Leon, either.”
The desire to stand up for all code crackers welled up within Eiji.
He wasn’t about to let Leon waltz in and take his job and professional relationship with Professor Ryusenji without a fight.
Nor was he about to let Leon interfere with his life over little more than his warped sense of justice.
Nothing was more important to Eiji than his own freedom.
(I didn’t even attend my own high school graduation. I had no idea what kind of face to put on. How do you look happy when you can’t stop thinking about how you’ve been forced out of your own home?)
He wouldn’t let anyone make him feel that miserable again.
“I’ll Digivolve! We’ll take out Pulsemon AND Kazuchimon!”
“I like your attitude!”
Eiji said, poking his head out from the loft.
“We’ll take ‘em out...and then what?”
Loogamon said, cocking its head.
“What do you mean, ‘then what?’”
“I dunno! I’ve never felt this way before!”
“The mind of a Digimon is just full of mysteries, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you’re scared!”
“Say that ever again and I’ll never mindlink with you again!”
It would be a Digimon duel.
Code crackers and hackers always settled their differences on the network.
Leon himself wasn’t in any real danger; Eiji was no murderer.
All that was on the line was Leon’s pride and the hackers’ conception of justice.
“Hang on. Pulsemon gave you a present or something at the DDL café yesterday, right? What was inside?”
“I dunno, I didn’t open it! What if it’s a bomb?”
Loogamon said, hololizing the unopened box into the room.
“Yeah, fair enough. I wouldn’t open a present from a hacker either,” Eiji said through a wry smile.
For all he knew it was a virus.
“So what’s our strategy, then?”
“We can’t beat Leon and Kazuchimon in our current state, but I figure we’ll digivolve you until we can!”
“I’ll never say no to getting stronger!” Loogamon perked up at the thought.
“I’m coming after you, Leon. I’m tired of you and your perfect life. Loogamon and I are gonna take your snobby hacker self down, in the name of the code crackers!”
Eiji would earn Professor Ryusenji’s trust, even if that meant knocking off the professor’s top student.
That would open doors for him. Lead him to success.
Eiji began formulating a plan, dictating it to Loogamon as he went.
He was ready to take Leon down a peg, just as Tartarus asked
