Chapter 4: Codes and DNA

Saguru and Tailmon followed Fujieda around DATS headquarters. She showed them the common areas that all DATS agents had access to like the locker rooms, gym, break lounges, the cafeteria, the conference rooms, and – upon necessity and request – they ended the tour with a stop at one of the main labs. Saguru whistled, impressed, as he eyed the various machines and computer banks.

“Uh-oh,” Tailmon sighed, recognizing the look in his eye. “We may be here a while.”

Saguru shot an unamused look at her, but went back to observing the equipment, asking Fujieda what their purpose was. He was particularly interested in the machine that zapped Raremon’s Digiegg back to the Digital World and questioned the technicians on the mechanics and engineering behind it. Tailmon took the opportunity to take a quick catnap off in an out of the way corner while Saguru continued to familiarize himself with the lab.

Fujieda watched Saguru experiment with some of the controls on the monitors that detected breeches in the barrier between their world and the Digital World. She smiled as she imagined the ghost image of a different and slightly younger blond boy working at those controls with him.

“You know,” she said. “I’m sure if you wanted, Captain Satsuma would give you clearance to work in here. You clearly enjoy this sort of thing.”

“My grandfather owns and runs Hakuba Labs,” Saguru told her, smiling sheepishly as he finally stepped back from the equipment and allowed the technicians to resume their work undisturbed. “My father’s position as a Superintendant in the Japanese Metropolitan Police Force means that he puts in a lot of time at the office. As a result, when I first moved to Japan two years ago I ended up spending most of my free time with my grandfather and in his labs. He gave me a space and resources to do my own forensic work for my cases and before I knew it, I was attending online classes for a Forensic Science Major and was working as an intern to gain experience in the labs. That way I could do the forensic work myself rather than wait for one of the lab techs to get the results for me.”

Fujieda nodded. “Since you’re qualified I’ll talk to the Captain and see if he can add special permission lab access to the areas your DATS ID will allow you to enter. You should get your official badge and credentials in a week. If you’ll come with me now we’ll go ahead and get you your work-issued Bluetooth earphone and a temporary ID work card until your official documents are made.”

Saguru nodded, waking Tailmon so that they could leave.

Fujieda took them to an office room where staff and agents were issued their standard work equipment and paper work. After filling out a few work forms, Saguru handed his new digivice over to a technician. The technician pressed some buttons on the device as she pulled out a blue and white Bluetooth headset that clipped on over the left ear.  Saguru watched with interest as she synced the two devices and started to explain to him what buttons did what on the headset and all of the basic functions on the digivice. Tailmon had not liked it one bit when the technician scanned her with the digivice and proceeded to demonstrate how she could be stored inside it. Out of respect for Tailmon, after she was released from the digivice and resumed her usual spot on Saguru’s shoulder, he declined trying to perform the procedure himself saying that he understood how the process worked. Tailmon sagged slightly in relief and curled her tail around his shoulders in a small gesture of thanks. She chose to remain on his shoulder for the remainder of their visit after that, huddled close to and slightly behind his neck, away and as far out of sight from the technician.

Afterwards, Fujieda took them back to her car and drove them home.

“Wow,” Fujieda said, staring wide-eyed as they pulled up in front of the western styled mansion. “Nice place.”

“It’s alright,” Saguru sighed, wincing internally. Hers was a common reaction. “It might as well be a museum, though, for all of the empty and unused rooms there are inside.”

“Right,” she said, snapping out of her ogling. “Well! It’s been nice meeting and getting to know you. Thanks for your help today. I look forward to working with you in the future.”

“Likewise, Fujieda-san,” Saguru smiled, holding out a hand for her to shake.

“Yoshino,” the redhead said firmly, shaking his hand. “Call me Yoshino.”

“Yoshino-san, then,” Saguru said with a nod.

“May I call you Saguru-kun?” she asked.

Saguru blinked in surprise. Other than members of his family and Baaya, most people in Japan insisted on calling him by his family name and always stuck to that address no matter how long they had known him because of who his father was and the respect they held for the position he commanded. Not even Aoko had asked him if she could call him by his first name yet even though she’d insisted that he address her by hers after they became friends. Tailmon had been the only exception, but she was a being from another world that couldn’t be expected to know this world’s social customs and, therefore, didn’t count.

“You can say no if it’ll make you uncomfortable. I promise I won’t be offended,” Yoshino was quick to say, misinterpreting his reaction. “I realize that we just met and that most people wait until they know one another better before addressing each other by their first names, but at DATS, we’re kind of a close knit group, ya know? What we do is confidential and we can’t normally tell anybody outside of DATS about Digimon and what we do, so…”

“No, it’s fine,” Saguru reassured. “It’s just that no one ever asks. I don’t mind if you address me as Saguru, Yoshino-san.”

She smiled widely at him. “Great! I’ll be in touch soon. Have a good night, Saguru-kun. Tailmon.”

“Good night!” Lalamon’s voice chirped from within Yoshino’s digivice.

“Same to you,” Saguru and Tailmon said as they got out of the car.

Yoshino waved before pulling away.

Once inside, Saguru had to sneak Tailmon past Baaya because she refused to go into the digivice. Once they were safely upstairs in Saguru’s bedroom, Tailmon jumped up onto the bed, faced him, and crossed her paws in front of her.

“I am not going into that thing unless it is absolutely necessary. And by absolutely necessary, I mean in last resort no-where else to hide scenarios,” she growled. “We clear?”

“Is it that bad in there?” Saguru asked.

Tailmon fidgeted slightly. “Well… no. It’s not… terrible. Bit cramped, but not…” She shrugged.
“It just scared you when that technician simply zapped you inside the digivice without warning,” Saguru deduced.

“I wasn’t scared,” Tailmon retorted. Saguru raised an eyebrow. “…But maybe it did startle me a bit,” she finished reluctantly.

Saguru crouched down so that he was at her eyelevel. “I can’t promise that I won’t suddenly upload you into the digivice, but I swear to you, on my honor, that I won’t do so without good reason. I will never force you into the digivice, but in the event that I might have to upload you inside the digivice for your own safety or if you’re in danger of being detected by ordinary citizens, I will do my best to ask your permission or at least warn you before doing so. Is that satisfactory?”

Tailmon narrowed her eyes, but nodded. “I can live with that.”

Saguru nodded back with a smile before rising to his feet and headed over to his desk, plopping down into the leather office chair there. He pulled out his new digivice and turned it over in his hands, sometimes pressing a few buttons to get a better feel for how the device worked and what it could do. During his examination he came across a small chip that clicked open to reveal a port opening. Curious, Saguru booted up his desktop computer and opened the bottom left drawer of his desk.

“What are you doing?” Tailmon asked, watching him curiously.

“I want to see if I can hook this up to my computer,” Saguru said, digging through the desk drawer. It was full of an assortment of cords and cables. He selected one and with a satisfied smirk, connected one end to the digivice and plugged the other end of the cords into a USB port on his computer. It took a few minutes, but after a little searching and finagling he was able to access the digivice’s files on his computer.

“Whoa,” Saguru said, eyes wide as he scanned through all the coded data he was seeing.

“Looks like a bunch of numbers,” Tailmon said.

“It’s a binary code,” Saguru mused. “A whole lot of it.”

“What does it all mean?” Tailmon asked.

“Give me a moment,” Saguru muttered, tapping away at the keyboard.

Tailmon watched the human, seeing his eyes darting back and forth as they quickly read what was on the screen and his fingers flew rapidly across the keys. She saw the series of numbers flashing as they scrolled by on the screen. After fifteen minutes, Saguru let out a triumphant “yes!” as the numbers vanished and actual text began to pop up in various windows.

“What does is it all say?” Tailmon asked.

“A lot of it is documented in a series of glyphs I’m unfamiliar with, but some of it is in Japanese and English. This, for example,” he said, clicking on a window of Japanese text, “is the system’s log. It states when this digivice was activated and went online for the first time, when it was tested, when updates to the software were made, and here, near the end of the log, is a record file that was downloaded when you became D’Arcmon for the first time.” Saguru’s fingers were a blur as he typed in a series of commands and opened the record he’d indicated. “Fascinating.”

“What?” Tailmon asked, not able to decipher the text aside from a few small words. There was more code, some in binary, and some in a seemingly random sequence of Romanized letters.

“This is more than just a record of when the device is active,” Saguru said, scrolling through a new window that had popped up. “There is another code here. Three, actually… wait a minute… I know what this one is…” He pulled up the Romanized letter code and with a few more taps another window popped up with a series of English text and a series of pictures. “No way… this is a human DNA code sequence… and a record of a blood type and body type, all identical to my own… This must be my entire genetic code! If that’s the case…” More typing. Another two windows popped up, these ones with pictures of Tailmon and D’Arcmon. “Oh, wow! Tailmon, these are yours. …It’s all binary – digital code – and yet there seems to be a biological element to this second code… hold on.”

Saguru frowned, pulling up the windows of both his and D’Arcmon’s data side-by-side, highlighting sections of their codes. After some more rapid typing, the highlighted sections in the window with D’Arcmon’s data condensed and reappeared as Romanized letters instead of a series of 0s and 1s. Now the binary code was broken up with small sections of the Romanized letter sequencing that made up small parts of Saguru’s DNA code.

“Look at that,” he said.

“They match… So?” Tailmon asked.

“My DNA,” Saguru said. “There are small translated sections of my genetic code imbedded here within your binary code after you evolved into D’Arcmon.”

“What does that mean?” Tailmon asked.

“…I’m not sure,” Saguru mused, “but now, more than ever, do I want to work in DATS’ labs. If this information is any indication and my deductions are correct, the digivice acts as a kind of conductor that somehow absorbs, reads, and then translates parts of my biological DNA into data – probably through that light energy that Yoshino and that old man from the docks referred to as my Digisoul – and it changes the properties that make up your own binary code enough that you evolve into D’Arcmon.”

“As interesting as that all sounds, lets be clear here. I am not going to be a guinea pig in any experiments that you may be formulating in that smarty-pants brain of yours,” Tailmon said firmly.

“You won’t need to be a guinea pig,” Saguru reassured her. “I can create simulators on the computer. All I’d need for what I have in mind is your code, but your entire code is already registered here in the digivice. And so is mine it seems.”

“How did you know those parts of my code were binary versions of segments of your genetic code?” Tailmon asked, frowning as she looked at the seemingly random sequence of letters and numbers.

“Eidetic memory,” Saguru mused. “Also known as photographic memory. I remember everything I’ve ever studied. While working on my Forensic Science degree, I had the opportunity to study my own DNA, including the sequence code, both in letters and strung out in binary. That’s why I recognized it as such when I saw it again here.”

“Must be nice having such a good memory and a big brain,” Tailmon commented, impressed.

“…Not always,” Saguru frowned. “There are a lot of things I wish I didn’t remember. But it is my eidetic memory that allows me to be so effective analyzing codes, cold cases and thefts. I can look at two seemingly identical pictures and spot the differences as if they were glaringly obvious. I can read through large piles of case files and find the tiny little inconsistencies in testimonies and evidence. I notice if there is a slight and suddenly change or deviation in a pattern. And on Kid heists it is particularly useful being able to spot the small signs of disturbance that highlight his presence or the placement of one of his traps. Being able to avoid said traps and warn others about them in time, however, is another matter altogether. The body cannot always keep up with the mind when it’s required to act in time to avoid sudden unpleasant surprises. And then there are the times my mind is taking in and processing so much that I am too focused on the little details that I miss the bigger picture until I take that step back to gain perspective. Sometimes being so smart is more of a curse than it is a blessing. Yes, it allows me to do my work, but more often than not I get so caught up in a case that I forget things like eating and sleeping. I forget the outside world around me and my social life suffers for it. That’s why I don’t have too many friends. I can become obsessive with my work and that obsession gets in the way of my life. My grandfather is of a similar nature, so we get along and understand one another quite well. Neither of my parents are like that, however, and it frustrates them whenever I fall down the proverbial rabbit hole.”

“I see…” Tailmon said slowly, now understanding why Saguru had stashes of candy and granola bars in his desk, bedside table, school bag, and the coat he’d worn on their outing that day. She made a mental note to keep an eye out for that sort of obsessive behavior. In the few days she’d gotten to know Saguru, she’d come to like and respect him. He was her only friend in this world and she vowed to watch out for him, as he had for her. She allowed Saguru to examine and study the data and properties of the digivice, but after a few hours reminded him that he was well enough to go to school the next day and that he’d better get some sleep.



Over the next few days, Saguru got up and went to school while Tailmon stayed behind. He always left her a stash of food before he left and she kept herself preoccupied learning the inner workings of the house. She was careful to avoid being spotted by Baaya and Saguru’s father during the rare occasions that the man was home for something. When she wasn’t prowling about the house, she was in Saguru’s room continuing her studies of the Japanese and English languages so that she wouldn’t have to constantly ask Saguru what something said or meant. These language lessons also allowed her to use Saguru’s laptop more effectively so that she could learn more about the human world on her own time. But after four days of the same routine she was getting bored. She was now competent – if not fluent – in her ability to read, type, and understand both languages, and there were only so many times she could stand to explore the house each day.

“You want to do what?” Saguru asked in surprise Friday morning, as he was getting ready for school.

“Go to school with you,” Tailmon repeated her request. “I’ll go mad if I spend another long boring day in this place.”

“I suppose, but I don’t have the time this morning to mix and apply the makeup solution that hides the irregular aspects of your appearance like I did Sunday,” Saguru frowned.

“…I could go in the digivice,” Tailmon said reluctantly.

Saguru looked at her with even more surprise.

“You’d have to stay inside it most of the time,” Saguru pointed out.

“I’ll have to get used to being stuck inside that thing at some point,” Tailmon pointed out bitterly. “Besides, it’s almost been a full week since we were at DATS. You said so yourself that you expected Yoshino to get in contact with you soon. What if it’s today she contacts you? Wouldn’t it be easier if we were already together when she called? And what if she just shows up at your school? Are you really going to want to waste time coming all the way back here to pick me up?”

“…You really are going stir crazy here, aren’t you?” Saguru mused. “But how is the digivice going to be any better?”

“It won’t be,” Tailmon muttered, “but at least I’ll be able to keep tabs on you and what’s going on. Besides, you’ve complained enough about your friend, Kuroba, acting up in the mornings that I’m curious to see – or at least hear – it for myself. If it gets to be too much inside the stupid thing, you can set me loose during a break or something and I’ll manage to move about undetected somehow. Maybe I’ll find a nice tree to climb.”

Saguru chuckled at her bitter and sarcastic final remarks. “Alright.” He pulled out his digivice and began tapping a couple buttons. “Ready?”

She nodded.

Saguru hit one more button, pointed the screen at her and Tailmon’s form flickered like static for a moment before vanishing. He looked down at his digivice’s screen and saw her looking back at him.

“So far so good,” the cat Digimon sighed. “It’s not as bad in here as I remember it being.”

“To be fair, you weren’t expecting the transfer last time,” Saguru told her gently before pocketing the device and headed down stairs.

After picking up his lunch from Baaya (and sneaking a little extra away for Tailmon), Saguru proceeded on his way to school, poking the top half of his digivice out of his pocket to that Tailmon could see the places he passed by – something for which she greatly appreciated, especially when he reached his school. She watched with interest as boys and girls swarmed around the place all wearing the same clothes – Saguru had called them uniforms. Once they stopped inside one of the rooms in the massive building, Saguru transferred his digivice to a small outside pocket on his backpack, leaving the zipper ajar so that Tailmon could continue watching what was going on around him.

Tailmon had to focus really hard on not laughing when she finally saw what Saguru had referred to as “the morning mop chase” performed by Kuroba and Aoko. She hadn’t known that humans could move like that. Kuroba was as light on his feet and in his movements as she was, flitting from desk to desk and all around the room while Aoko screamed after him with a long stick with a bunch of floppy string things on it’s end. When Tailmon had caught sight of the stick-string-mop-thing, she’d been tempted to leave the digivice and chase after the stringy ends, but the moment the mop-thing had been turned on Kaito and the chase ensued, that urge was squashed as she saw what a lethal weapon it was in the human girl’s hands. The chase was amusing though, and she would be disappointed if it moved out of her view for longer than half a minute. She admired their endurance.

Then an adult male human, who could only be what Saguru had called a “teacher,” came in and stopped the chase. Then the teacher droned on and on about something Tailmon didn’t understand or care about and she prepared herself for a boring day. It wasn’t completely boring, however. Saguru’s friend, Kuroba, had performed a series of pranks and tricks that lightened the mood and alleviated her of her boredom throughout the day during the series of boring classes that Saguru had to attend. She was relieved, though, when Saguru released her from the digivice during his lunch break.

“Tailmon, realize!”

When Tailmon felt herself materialize again, she stretched and purred contentedly. Being inside the digivice might not have been as bad as she’d originally thought, but she definitely liked being outside the damned contraption more.

“Are you alright?” Saguru asked.

“I’m fine,” she shrugged, looking around at their new surroundings. They were on the school’s grounds, behind a corner of the building near a tree.

“Here.”

She looked up and saw that he was holding out a bundle towards her. She didn’t need to open it to know that there was food inside. She accepted it gratefully and took it with her as she jumped up into the tree’s lower branches.

“You can stay out here for the rest of the time I’m in class if you’d like,” Saguru informed her, pointing to the tree. You can see inside my classroom on the third floor from the upper branches and the field where we’ll be having gym class next block period. We’re running track.”

Tailmon nodded musingly as she took a bit out of the sandwich inside the food bundle. It was a better alternative than being trapped inside the digivice for the rest of the day. Besides, she wanted to do some exploring of her own and practice her stealth. She didn’t want to get lazy after all. It was one thing to be able to avoid an old woman in a large empty mansion, but an entire building full of students, however…

Saguru sighed and she returned her attention to him, looking inquisitive.

“Just don’t get caught while you look around, ok? I’ll meet you back here under the tree after the final bell rings,” he said. “I’d better get back inside or Aoko-kun and Kuroba-kun will come looking for me.”

She nodded but cocked her head to the side, wondering how he’d known that she wasn’t going to stay in the tree.

Saguru chuckled. “Cats are known for doing what they please in this world. I can’t and won’t stop you from doing what you wish, but I do ask that you be careful and meet back up with me at the appointed time. We don’t want DATS to think that you are going to be a liability and cause trouble.”

Tailmon shuddered at the implication of his words. She didn’t want to be sent back to the Digital World. She rather liked it here. She liked being with Saguru.

“I promise,” she said, making a mental note to herself to make today’s exploration a light surveillance trip. No risk taking until she knew the inner workings of this school better.

Saguru nodded an acknowledgement before heading back inside the school.