<Insert clever crap here>
If you shouldn’t be reading this, than don’t read it. You know the drill.
-Notorious
Forever's End Episode 5
Inadvocare Pax - "Where Angels Lose Their Wings"
U.M.M Headquarters- American Division
San Francisco, California
(1 hour until launch)
Wendell hated sitting there- in front of the CEO of the American Division of the U.M.M, Alexander Washington. He was an old looking white man with hair everywhere on his body except on his head, and he had cold gray eyes that basically said "I own you," (which he really did.) Across the black pine desk in the cramped white-painted office, he sat in a very uncomphortable chair with his jumpsuit uniform on, an unranked grease monkey. As if he didn't seem insignificant enough, he soon found that Alexander Washington thought he was insane for even coming into his office.
"Mr. Marshall..." he sighed closing the black file he had just read onto his desk and removing his coke bottle glasses. "Why ... are you here?"
Wendell blinked. He looked at the discarded file on the black desk, and then back to his elderly looking boss. How could he not know why he was here? Hadn't he just read that file?
"Mr.
Mr.
Yeah you bastard, the Negro can speak. Wendell thought to himself.
"When the D-66 goes into warp," Wendell went on. "It reconfigures reality within a ten foot area of itself. Making the necessary modifications it changes the barriers that separates dimensions and sub-dimensions from elastic to...”
He
looked at Mr.
"Okay," he sighed. "Imagine that reality as we see it is a giant lake."
He
glanced at Mr.
"And imagine," he continued. "That it was frozen all the time. Now, if we want to break the surface of that water, we have to change it from an impenetrable solid to a liquid, right?"
Mr.
"Now, suppose this lake is filled with skaters that are always sliding along this ice. We can't thaw out the ENTIRE lake, because if we did all the skaters would fall through and die by way of drowning. You know that hot flows to cold right? Since all that ice is one giant unit, you can't really expect to thaw out one part of it without the rest of it melting as well, right? The heat would flow through the entire body of ice, and it would all melt. Because of that, we take a different approach."
Wendell
brushed one of his dreads out of his face, and made sure Mr.
"Instead we're going to take a giant drill and go straight through the ice. That way we can affect one small part of the ice without endangering the other parts since underneath the surface the lake is liquid and can be traveled through. Now when you drill through something like ice, even when trying to drill a small hole what happens? The entire thing starts to crack right? The same thing with some other material like it such as glass or plastic. You have to be very precise and exact to make that small hole without the rest of the body falling apart, correct?"
Mr.
"Well that's what I fear is happening with the D-66," Wendell said. "The frozen surface of the lake? That's reality where all the little boys and girls live up on the surface. The liquid underneath is equivalent to the space between realities- a place I like to call The Void. The floor of the lake is the world we are trying to reach, and the drill is the D-66. When you try to drill through water with something that is too rough and imprecise, it cracks and lets the water through everywhere eventually leading in the collapse in the surface reality- our world."
"What
is your point Mr. Marshall," Mr.
"This is my point sir," he said a bit irritably. "My job at the U.M.M was to create an ark that would be able to survive the Void and basically break the surface of reality within a small area of space providing safe interdimensional travel for anyone WITHIN the ship. Shielding the contents of the ship was made possible by the G.M.S, Ghost Metal System, which I created. I basically fused together a specific combination of metals that could reflect the Void in such a way that it would phase the inside of the ship.
"That basically means that when the D-66 is in mid-warp it exists, but it doesn't exist. Its literally a ghost until it reaches the other side. I thought the G.M.S was a brilliant discovery. A metal sphere that could reflect reality in such a way that whatever was beneath it existed OUTSIDE of reality. The problem didn't lie within my work as I thought. Upon further investigation after a small rip in reality was opened when we were working on the power core of the ship. Fortunately we cut the power before it caused any problems, but when the D-66 is in mid-warp we cannot simply pull the plug. If another crack or two in reality is formed, I fear it could tear our world apart."
Mr.
"So you’re basically saying," he said. "That your calculations for 'drilling' into reality were off? You want us to suspend the entire D-66 program because of your mistake?"
Wendell
opened his mouth wanting to say something. He wanted so badly to be able to
blame someone else for the miscalculation, but there was no one else to blame.
It was he who had designed the D-66, and if anything happened because of it,
the blood of whomever it affected would be on his hands. Not Lt. West's, or the
rest of the Mechanics Division in
It would be his entire fault.
Seeing
the slight hesitation on Wendell's face Mr.
"Mr.
Wendell," he said in a deep emotionless voice. "We are scheduled for
laucnh in a few hours. Crewmembers from all over the world are just getting off
their planes and boats as we speak and making their way to
Sighing, Wendell got up, straightened his clothes and made his way to the door.
"I have to get back to the base and pack my things," he grumbled.
"Pack your things? For what?"
Wincing, Wendell turned back around and gave his boss a quizical look.
"For the launch," he said. "I'm suposed to be the on-board engineer, and I'm already running la-"
"Didn't
Lt. West tell you?" Mr.
"Tell me what?"
"Your
not going to be aboard the D-66," Mr.
Wendell stopped dead in his tracks and so did his heart.
"Mr.
"The
decision has been made," Mr.
"Mr.
"Mr.
Marshall!" Mr.
Wendell's eyes went wide.
"I can't even see my creation launched?" he said in disbelief. "I can't see my baby fly?"
Mr.
"Go
now or I'll have you cleaning equipment in
And so Wendell left.
Rising
(45 minutes until launch)
Terra Sansoon had been waiting for her date for the past hour. She knew that Hiro had never been a big spender or anything, so she wasn't really hurt about the fact he hadn't told her about any plans of renting a limo or anything. She was more worried about why he was so late. Terra was dressed in a beautiful blue and white dress that had material she reckoned had been forged by angels. She had even gone as far as putting on make-up for the first time, trimming her blue hair and dying it back to her natural root color, black (it had been blue before). She stood uncomfortably in the shadows of the school gym watching the rest of the kids talk and dance the night away.
"Where the hell are you Hiro," she whispered to herself watching the dance floor. "I hope you're alright."
Meanwhile...
Hiro had never been in a limo in his entire life, nor had he ever been so dressed up. The fanciest clothes that he owned was his #77 basketball uniform. Because of the fact that his family of his mother and himself didn't have a terrific amount of money, Hiro had to split the limo with another couple. It was bad enough that his mother had made him dress up like this, but he felt extremely uncomfortable when he had gotten in the limo from his home. With the other couple of Taka Sho and Kim Manori groping each other without any inhibitions at all on the velvet seat-bench across from him he felt even uneasier.
Taka was dressed in some black jeans, a leather jacket, and a white t-shirt that may or may not have been clean. His hair was greasy and strands of it were in his face as well. Kim was dressed in a red low-cut dress to show off her noticeably large chest, had her blonde hair down to her shoulders straight and long, and had so much make-up on, it could make a prostitute cry.
Taka had rolled up the soundproof window separating the passenger and driver compartments of the lavish car and now was kissing half of the excessive the make-up right off of Kim's face.
"How long away is this girl's house again?" Taka said taking his mouth away from Kim a moment.
"Er ..." Hiro stuttered amazed that Taka wasn't concerned Hiro was watching. "About ten or fifteen minutes. Its across the bridge."
Taka giggled and kissed Kim again quickly on the cheek.
"Do you hear that baby?" Taka mumbled in Kim's ear. "That's five or ten minutes more than I need."
Kim squealed playfully as Taka bit her ear. Hiro on the other hand felt more uncomfortable than ever.
Thanks a lot mom, Hiro thought to himself.
As if God was watching out for Hiro, the car stopped all of a sudden. Taka groaned and rolled down the black window so he could yell at the driver.
“What’s the hold up man?” Taka growled. “We have a dance to get to.”
He glanced at the blushing Kim who quickly straightened out her dress and clearing her throat at the same time.
“…Eventually,” he said grinning before returning his attention to the driver.
“I’m getting a call from my boss,” the driver said. “Just give me a few moments and I’ll be on my way.”
Hiro brightened up suddenly.
“Yeah, and … er… I have to get some fresh air,” he said opening the door. “Tap on the window when we’re ready.”
And with that, he cleared his throat and stood outside of the car.
“Whatever man,” Taka said and shut the door.
Hiro quickly moved to the pavement so as not to stand in the middle of oncoming traffic. Sighing, he looked up at the sky just in time to see a wave of what seemed to be green electricity way up in the sky.
“What
is that?” he said furrowing his brow. “We don’t exactly get the northern lights
in
He blinked, and just that fast the wave was gone. He shook his head wondering if he had seen it at all, and turned his attention to something else out of place. Across the street he saw a short and scrawny kid across the street with way too much grease in his hair. He was dressed in a sorry looking tuxedo that looked two sizes too small. Hiro recognized that nerdy and dirty looking face anywhere.
“David!?” he yelled on impulse. “Is that you?”
David immediately stopped in his tracks and spun around ready to fight instinctively, but saw that it was Hiro who was across the street walking towards him now.
“Uh oh,” David muttered in his squeaky voice, and he began running down the street.
Hiro quickly considered chasing after him, curious as to if he was still stalking Terra or not, but seeing the waiting limo on the other side of the street, he sighed and went back over there noticing that the windows were fogged up.
“Uh, uh uh, uh, UH, UH! Oh God …. OH GOD! I’m coming!” went the car.
Hiro rolled his eyes.
“Should’ve went after the stalker,” he grumbled and heard a tap on the window from the driver.
Reluctantly he opened the door and was hit with the smells of sex full blast.
“Woah,” he went closing his eyes and stumbling back before opening his eyes and gaping in horror. “Jesus Christ! Don’t you have better aim? Where am I supposed to sit…”
Grumbling and contorting his face he got in the car.
(25 minutes to launch)
“Now then,” Wendell said shakily. “In a little under a half an hour the final phase of Operation: D-66 will commence. You brave men of the Unsanction Monster Makers will take the Digital Flying Fortress, also known as the D-66 through The Void and into the Digital World.”
Wendell sighed as he leaned on the podium before all of the people he had worked with to make his dream ship a reality for ten years. They all watched him on the giant viewing screen in the briefing room dressed in his usual black and yellow jumpsuit.
“For
ten years all I did was eat, drink, and breathe D-66,” he said, his voice
shaking a little. “And I worked the past ten years to make my dream come true.
In the launching bay is my ark … your ark.
The crowd of black and yellow jumpsuits cheered happily and whistled. Wendell spotted Lt. West in the corner wearing a black and red jumpsuit. He reckoned that she was dressed properly today because of the fact that her superiors were in attendance getting situated on the ship. Seeing that he had spotted her, she blew him a kiss, which Wendell ignored.
“So all that I ask of you today,” Wendell said as he fought to stay professional. “Is that while you’re out there in The Void, and in the Digital World to say hello to the other side of the looking glass for me …”
The crowd of mechanics got deathly quiet as they heard their superior, who had always seemed so strong and confident, fighting back tears.
“Because
I will not be stationed aboard the D-66,” Wendell finally got out. “I will be
serving at Station 131 as a Lt. Commander in
There were confused murmurs about the crowd just as Wendell had expected.
“I wish that I could be there to see my baby fly,” Wendell said a single tear streaming down his cheek. “But I would like all of you to know that Operation: D-66 has changed me in more ways than I could have ever imagined. Creating that ship was a dream, and you should all feel fortunate that you get to experience that dream as well. I h-have to g-go … but I want you all to treat Lt. Roberts with the same respect that you have honored me with for these past years. Lt. Commander Marshall out.”
He gave one final nod and the screen went black. Nobody saw the smile that spread on his face immediately after ending the transmission.
Our Lady Hope Hospital
Red Hook,
(25 minutes until launch)
Ally
and her boyfriend, TD, had been out many places in
Red Hook was definitely not one of them.
Red
Hook,
But
she had to see him. She had to see her boyfriend who had been impaled in the
head with a large shard of glass. What kind of girlfriend would she be if she
didn’t? Her parents wouldn’t take her to see him, and neither would TD’s
mother. Neither family approved of their mixed relationship, so she had no
choice but to sneak out of her house and sneak through one of the most
dangerous sections of
How did a thing like this get started? This was all because they didn’t look the same?
Slipping into the dark room, she looked around. The room was painted white, but it looked like it was indigo instead because of the weird nightglow that rested upon it. There were numerous machines hooked up to the sleeping TD, but few of them seemed to be on. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but she hoped it was the former. Ally was dressed some baggy black cargo pants with holes ripped in the knees, some black sneaker-shoes, and a black “Sk8er Born, Sk8er Breed, And Someday, Sk8er Dead” T-shirt that she had thrown on. Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail and she was wearing a black Yankees cap.
Still in awe of the fact that she’d gotten across Red Hook uneventfully, she went over to the bed where TD lay. TD’s hair was sticking straight up in an afro instead of down and slick like he usually wore it. His colored contacts were out, and he was dressed in a plain poke-a-dot hospital gown. He didn’t look like the supposedly “white” kid he was always dubbed as in school or anything of the sort. He just looked like another black kid.
But he was her black kid, and that’s all that mattered. It wasn’t the skater accent, the shoulder-length hair, or the baby blue contacts that attracted Ally, it was TD himself as a person. That lone proved that this whole “race” thing was nonsense, and that the fact that she wasn’t even phased by TD’s appearance proved she really did like him for who he was and not out of curiosity of the black race.
Of course, she was thinking about too much to realize that.
“Theodore?” she whispered. “Theodore, are you awake?”
“Mmmm?” went TD stirring from his sleep. “Ally, is that you…?”
Allison crept across the remaining space separating her from the bed and took her lover’s hands, tears streaming from her eyes. Her other hand ran across the stitches on TD’s forehead.
“Mmmmm what time is it?” the half-awake TD mumbled.
Allison glanced at the clock on the wall.
“Almost three in the morning,” she whispered.
“Three
in the morning!?” TD exclaimed suddenly waking up completely. “Did you come
across Red Hook? Ally, you have to get back to
“Shhhhh,” went Ally, and she bent don’t and kissed TD full on the lips. “Everything will be alright.”
Ally
was a good liar. She had no plan on how to get back to the
“Everything’s going to be alright,” she whispered again unsurely glancing at the clock.
(5 minutes to launch)
Wendell
had never been one for sneaking around. When you’re as big and strong as he
was, you don’t need to. Whenever you had a problem or anything, you could just
knock the daylights out of whomever gave you trouble. Unfortunately, what he
had in mind called for a bit more of a subtle approach. He had given the U.M.M
the slip at the airport and driven to the Mechanics Hangar instead of going to
“Looks like you can have your cake and eat it too,” he smirked looking at his rank. “Now to get aboard my damned ship.”
Taking a deep breath Wendell cocked back the handle of his gun. It wasn’t a dangerous rifle, only a stunning plasma shotgun he’d invented.
When Wendell snuck into the entrance he could see a fairly large crowd in the hangar. He reckoned that most of the crew however, was probably already on the ship. They were all dressed in U.M.M uniforms. Black and yellow for mechanics, black and red for command, and black and blue for medical. He wanted to get a glimpse of the captain who’d be commanding the vessel, but he or she was nowhere to be found. Who was to be found was Lt. West who was still dressed in her black and red uniform. Wendell noticed that she was surrounded by a particularly large amount of men (even for her) that were talking about something. Lt. West herself looked extremely grave and not the bitchy person she usually was around the mechanics division.
“Must be her bosses,” he muttered.
Wendell was on the upper level of the hangar, which was built with a huge hole in the middle so that you could see what was going on below. Rather than take the stares he tapped his watch to signal another device of his, an invisibility cloak. Not wasting any time, he jumped over the guardrail and fell a good twenty-five feet to the ground level unbeknownst to the crew of the D-66.
He saw his opportunity ahead of him. One of the men from his division was loading some large canisters into one of the cargo bays of the ship. The canisters were gray and unmarked. Taking a look, he saw that there was enough room to squeeze in. He waited for the guy to step out of the bay before jumping in just as the door slid close.
Wendell sat there in complete darkness wondering just how much trouble he was going to get in when the U.M.M realized that instead of being on a plane, he was about to take a much different flight!
Rising Sun High School Gym,
Kanazawa, Japan
(1 minute to launch)
Terra Sansoon was feeling more horrible than ever sitting alone at a table while the dance continued. The night was already halfway over and there was no sign of Hiro. Even the cool people who had been late for the sake of being cool were all here (except Taka Sho, who she had not seen). Just when Terra was about to get up to call the police, the gym doors opened and snapping around, Terra saw Hiro looking fairly harassed and flustered. He was followed by Taka Sho, Kim Manori, and some other girl who Terra assumed was Taka’s second date (he would do something like that, wouldn’t he?)
“Sorry I’m late,” Hiro apologized giving his ticket to the student council member at the door. “We had a bit of a hold-up.”
Hiro looked darkly at Taka who had his arm around Kim, but not the other girl. She was about to go greet Hiro when the girl took his hand and she stopped dead in her tracks.
“W-what?” she whispered silently to herself. “H-Hiro with another woman? But I thought …”
She quickly reviewed her memories of the note she received in her locker. There had been no name or indication of who it might have been. She must have automatically assumed it was Hiro. That meant that she had fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her after all!
“Hiro …” she whispered.
All of the members of the U.M.M who were not going aboard the D-66 watched from the inside as the giant geometric sphere lifted itself in the air, and through the open roof to the middle of the sky. They watched and cheered as it began spinning around slowly at first, and then faster and faster, glowing and cackling all at the same time.
Within the bowels of the ship, Wendell was working his hardest to open the loading bay doors, but his key card had been locked out apparently. He had fixed the equation for the D-66, and would only need a couple of keystrokes to fix it, but he couldn’t get out of the bay.
“DAMN IT!” he yelled kicking the door. “Is there anyone out there!?”
He continued to yell even though he knew Ghost Metal was soundproof. Realizing that his makeshift plan had failed, he kicked blindly in the dark. A canister tipped over and he heard a thick liquid pouring out onto the floor.
“Oh great,” he grumbled.
But then he had the incredible sensation that something had a hold of his leg and wouldn’t let him go. He felt as if his weight had just double and began sinking to the ground trying to pull away, but the liquid kept a hold on him.
“ARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
***
Power went out everywhere.
In every country, city, house, and village across the entire planet, and a few square light-years beyond it to boot. It was as if a giant electromagnetic pulse had just gone off, and everybody found himself or herself in the dark.
Our Lady Peace Hospital
Red Hook, New York
“Ally,” TD grumbled. “You have to get out of here … I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
Allison smiled lovingly.
“Nonsense its only…”
…But when she looked up at the clock she noticed the second hand had stopped moving. Paying closer attention to her surroundings, she noticed all the machines had gone off. Outside the window, all the streetlight had gone off as well.
“What in the world?”
Suddenly she got a very bad feeling in her stomach.
“Ugh,” she went.
“Are you okay?” TD asked.
“Just feeling a little queasy … nothing to be worried about.”
“…Me too.”
And then suddenly, as if their minds finally got the answer to some unsolved riddle, they both looked down at the ground, which was giving off some weird light.
“What is that?” TD asked leaning over his bed.
As if someone wanted to answer his question, the floor suddenly “opened” into a giant gaping tunnel of green and yellow light, which the two of them fell through.
Meanwhile…
“Wrestlecade 2003”
New York, New York
“And his opponent, from Holly-“
The entire arena of fans gasped as a giant green light burst from the entranceway of the arena. Wrestling is known for pyrotechnics, but something about that light seemed so unnatural everyone was immediately scared out of their wits even though it was only a second long.
“Brock Heracles?” the announcer whimpered.
Rising Sun High School Gym
Kanazawa, Japan
Taka and Kim started walking towards a table as Terra stood there, still terrified about her situation. She felt like such a fool. When David Cassidy walked through the door and smiled at her with his heavily braced teeth, she almost fainted.
That’s when it happened.
At first, Terra thought it was some kind of pyro the school had splurged on to make the dance seem half-decent, but then she heard the screams. Looking up from the ground she saw David, whom she had just looked at, picked up off the ground and fly into the ceiling which was actually a giant green and yellow tunnel seemingly made out of lightning.
“What the fuck?” Someone shouted.
Terra suddenly felt very sick as if she’d just lost her equilibrium, but that was the least of her concerns as she sudden began levitating off the ground. Screaming, she grabbed onto a nearby pillar and started “dangling” upside down, her beautiful dress almost over her head revealing her white thong underwear. She would have been embarrassed if she weren’t currently worried about falling upside down into the ceiling.
“Hiro! Help me!” was the first thing that came to her mind to yell.
Hiro was already looking around as if something were going to drop into his heands to deal with the situation. Unable to figure out anything fast enough he watched Terra loose her grip and fall into the vortex which sucked in Taka and his date before starting to close.
Think fast, Hiro thought.
Had he been in a sensible frame of mind, he wouldn’t have done what he did, but all he could think about was his friend inside that …thing. Showing off just why he was the MVP of the basketball team he ran full steam at the pillar Terra had been holding onto, jumped onto it and rebounded off plunging into the portal which then closed.
All the electronics in the world suddenly started to work again …
Above the U.M.M Mechanics Hangar
San Francisco, California
The U.M.M crew aboard the ship didn’t know what was going on. Since they were little more than ghosts in reality, the power outage didn’t affect them so they went on their merry way ripping through reality. The crew on the ground was screaming at them because they’d seen exactly what Lt. Command Marshall had told them was going to happen, happen. First the world suffered a giant power outage, and they’d detected numerous rifts in reality opening which had the exact same readings that they were told by Wendell were going to appear.
The ice hadn’t just cracked, it had been blown into a thousand pieces and then melted.
Notorious: And so, our tale begins all with a simple miscalculation in a soldier’s math problem. Its funny how the biggest things start so simple. What lies ahead in the Digital World? What will happen to Hiro, Taka, Terra, Allison, TD, David, and Kim? What was that stuff that spilled on Wendell, and why was he screaming? All of this and more in the next episode of Digimon: Digital Monsters!
Producer: *SLAP*
Notorious: What was that for?
Producer: *shrug* It was on the teleprompter …
Opinions? Critisisms? Comments? Requests? Suggestions? Send them to me at Majin_Noto@hotmail.com and be sure to leave your author opinons at the DaD website!