The kids left the Yokomon village and set out again. Other than Tai—who was fired up and kept a brisk pace because they were probably close to the steel factory—everyone else was at their limit.
"I'm dead on my feet. I can't take another step." Mimi finally cracked in the face of the endless road, dropping to her knees. Gomamon, who loved the water, could only inch along.
The youngest, T.K., bent over and plopped right down on the ground. Patamon hurried over to fuss over his partner.
"Everyone's wiped," Matt said.
"We haven't stopped at all," Sora added.
Tai wanted to reach the factory as soon as possible, but seeing the state they were in, he had to call a break. He glanced around and spotted a big tree. "Alright. Let's rest here for a bit."
At that, the exhausted kids all slumped under the tree. Izzy opened his laptop and found it still wouldn't power on.
"Come on… why won't this thing work?" Izzy grumbled, then turned his head. "Tai, how is yours working?" He'd spotted Tai tapping on a keyboard.
Tai paused the code he was writing. "All you need to do is inscribe Digicode on the battery."
"Digicode?" The answer floored them.
"How do you know that?" Sora asked. Everyone straightened up to listen.
"There was Digicode on the phone at the beach, and on the railcar out on the lake. Even our Digivices' programs are written in Digicode," Tai explained. Back during the Hikarigaoka incident, when the egg came out of the computer, the screen flashed with Digicode. Tai had copied the glyphs down, and after all this time he'd worked out quite a bit. Living in the Digital World had taught him even more.
Izzy lit up. "Can you inscribe mine? And… can you teach me Digicode?" There were stars in his eyes.
The look made Tai's scalp tingle. "No problem." He picked up a marker and scrawled a miniature version of a factory power-room routine on Izzy's battery.
With the final stroke, Izzy's laptop booted right up. Then Tai handed over his old notes and told Izzy to start with simple logic. Izzy accepted them like a treasure, eyes glowing, fingers clacking away.
Watching Izzy, Tai sighed. He hoped it would pay off later. He bent back over his own work, continuing a program he'd been assembling—parsed from bits of the Digivice firmware—that could trigger evolution.
After a short rest, they hit the road again.
Hours of trudging over the gravel flats later, a cluster of smokestacks at the horizon billowed dark plumes. A factory rose into view.
"Ha! We made it! Look, a factory!" Joe cried from a high ledge, thrilled.
Inside, a forest of machinery moved in highly automated rhythms.
"Looks like it's assembling… something," Matt said, leaning in, none the wiser for it.
The factory branched in all directions, so they started exploring. Joe was buzzing, convinced people must be here.
Ten minutes in, Biyomon stopped.
"Hm?"
"What is it?" Sora looked down at the partner who'd made the sound.
"I think I hear something."
"Let's go check it out," someone said.
They agreed, and with keen-eared Biyomon leading, they followed the sound.
Soon Tai and the others reached the power room. Inside stood a massive battery and a huge motor. "A giant battery and motor!" Izzy was awestruck. On one side of the battery was a person-sized hatch. Curiosity piqued, they squeezed in—and found the inner wall covered in strange, glowing characters.
Izzy felt along the outer casing and found a small service door. "Here!"
"Whoa—what is that?" Tentomon asked.
The battery was hollow inside. The inner wall was engraved with unknown symbols that glowed with a weird, numinous light.
Izzy studied them. "This is the same Digicode Tai wrote on my battery—and it's basically computer code!"
"Right. Digicode is computer code. The Digital World is built from programs." Tai drew his laptop, then began keying in symbols: some looked like Roman letters, others like Babylonian-style characters, and others still like ancient Crest runes. The sources seemed all over the place, but the zones were compartmentalized, each taking up a different function. All of it, collectively, was Digicode—symbols derived from data with special, defined meaning.
It didn't take long. Tai had already nearly finished; with the power room's Digicode as a boost, he completed it. He looked up and chose Tentomon—the partner who evolved here in the original timeline. He called everyone back outside the battery chamber, tweaked a few parameters, and, after one last adjustment, hit execute. Tentomon's body erupted in the light of evolution.
"Tentomon digivolve to… Kabuterimon!"
A towering beetle Digimon appeared, burly and menacing, with multiple arms, two wings, and a mouthful of sharp teeth—Kabuterimon.
Everyone erupted, crowding Tai and begging him to try their partners next. Out of a stitch of guilt, he tried Biyomon first. Sure enough, a burst of light later, a giant firebird filled the room—Biyomon's Champion, Birdramon. Seeing she had evolved, Tai let out a quiet breath. His program was sound. That meant, aside from Patamon, the others should be able to evolve too. Next, Palmon became Togemon. But under T.K.'s hopeful gaze, Patamon didn't evolve. The code window scrambled into gibberish. Tai sighed inwardly. Angemon really was the hardest—no way a Digimon that powerful would evolve just because of a script.
T.K. and Patamon both welled up. Patamon kept repeating, "Why is it just me… I want to evolve too."
Matt and the others moved to comfort T.K. Tai set his hands on the kid's shoulders and said firmly, "Don't feel bad, T.K. Patamon will evolve. Believe in your partner."
T.K. wiped his eyes and looked at Patamon. "You'll evolve, right? Patamon."
Patamon nodded. "Yeah. I'll evolve and protect you."
"Patamon."
"T.K."
Seeing them steady, everyone relaxed a little.
With a concrete win in hand, their hopes for the factory soared. While tuning code inside the battery, Tai also pulled a rough topographic map—apparently of File Island. It wasn't detailed, but it would still help on the road ahead.
They pushed on. At one corridor junction, Agumon spotted an Andromon wedged in a gear train. "Tai, what's that?" Agumon tugged at Tai's shirt. "Over there—stuck in the machine."
"Andromon. A Cyborg-type. He's usually mild-tempered," Gomamon said, perking up. "But he looks jammed… Should we pull him out?"
"Andromon—Cyborg-type, Ultimate level, Vaccine attribute. Special moves: Spiral Sword and Gatling Missile," Izzy rattled off.
"Let's help him," Sora said—meaning they should drag Andromon free.
"Wait," Tai stopped her.
"Andromon's a friendly Digimon. It'll be fine," Agumon said.
"No, that's not it. I'm saying I don't know if there's a Black Gear on him," Tai said, voicing his worry.
From what he remembered, most Digimon they met on the island had a Devimon Black Gear embedded in them. Andromon wouldn't be an exception.
Tai walked up slowly, crouched, and peered along the housing. "There's a black gear on his leg—the same kind we saw on Meramon." He glanced around again. "If that thing dropped onto Andromon, it'll cause us trouble."
"What do we do?" Everyone frowned. "Andromon's a good Digimon—we have to help him."
Tai thought for a moment, took out his scanner, and aimed at the gear. He captured the Black Gear's data to his laptop. If they were going to fight Devimon, this would at least teach them how the enemy operated.
"Okay," Tai pocketed the scanner. "Next, we use the Digivices to purge it." He raised his and aimed it at Andromon. Light spilled from Tai's Digivice.
"This is—" Sora began, at a loss for words.
After about ten seconds, the Black Gear wedged in the machinery shattered under the Digivice's glow. The light faded, and Tai let out a long breath.
"Definitely a Black Gear," he said over his shoulder.
"That was close," Joe said, patting his chest.
Then, together with their partners, they heaved Andromon's body free of the jam. He explained that while trying to remove a Black Gear that had gotten into the mechanism, he'd trapped himself, and had been stuck there, unable to move, for quite a while…