Mama Burton had always warned her children against opening emails from addresses they didn't recognise. Something about them containing viruses or unsafe links or other internet nasties, and that such emails should be deleted as soon as humanly possible. So when Harriet was doing her daily inbox check and happened across an email from a "Digicore@Digicenter.gov", an address she had never heard of let alone had any contact with, she remembered her mother's advice and promptly sent it to the trash, thinking that would be the last she would hear of it. She returned to looking through her emails.
Barely a second later, the very same email reappeared in her inbox.
Harriet frowned as she found herself staring at the exact same strange email. She was sure she had deleted it, but it was always possible she had merely
thought about deleting it, but had somehow forgotten to do so at the last minute. That wasn't so unusual, she could be a little absent-minded at times. Once again, and more deliberately this time, she ticked the box next to the email and selected "Delete." The email disappeared, and she gave the smallest sigh of relief. However, just as she was about to scroll down the page, the email reappeared.
Okay, something was very clearly up. Harriet tried to delete it again. And again. And again. And again and again and again. Each time it disappeared from her inbox, a second would pass before it would reappear, right at the top of her list of emails. Same sender. This went of for a few minutes before Harriet, more than a little frustrated at this point, decided that it was best to go ask someone a little more tech savvy for some advice.
Opening the door to her bedroom, Harriet began calling down the hallway.
"Mum!" she called, her voice echoing slightly down the corridor. When she didn't get a response, she called out again, her voice getting a little louder with each shout.
"Mum! Mum! MUM! MUUUUM!"Down the corridor, she heard the sound of someone's bedroom opening.
"She's not in!" A response finally sounded, but instead of a woman's voice, it was a boy's, and he sounded pretty pissed to have been disturbed. Tyler, Harriet's younger brother.
Harriet was surprised he'd even heard her. He almost always had his headphones and had the sound blasted to ridiculously high levels.
"Where is she?" Harriet called back.
"She went out shopping!" Tyler called back.
"About quarter an hour ago! Didn't she tell you!?"Harriet thought back. She didn't recall her mother mentioning that to her.
"I mustn't have heard her!" she called back. She heard the sound of a door creaking and suspected her brother was going to go back to doing... whatever it was he did all day. However, if what Tyler said was true, her mother wouldn't be back for some time.
"Tyler!" she called out.
The door creaked open again.
"What!?""I'm having some trouble with my computer!" Harriet responded.
"Could you come help me?" There was a pause, and for a moment, Harriet wondered if he'd even heard her. She was about to repeat herself when she heard a loud sigh.
"Fine!" Tyler responded.
"Just gimme a minute!"Five minutes later, the two siblings were in Harriet's room, Tyler sitting at his sister's desk with Harriet standing next to him, peering over his left shoulder. As Harriet had before, Tyler attempted to delete the email. When it predictably popped back up in the inbox, Tyler tried deleting it again and then went to look in the trash folder. What surprised both siblings was that not only was the email there, but so were several copies of it. Apparently, it wasn't the same email popping up in Harriet's inbox. Whoever the sender was somehow knew when the email was deleted and was able to send a brand new message a second later.
"Fascinating," Tyler murmured.
"Fascinating!?" Harriet squeaked.
"My computer could be in danger!""One way to find out," Tyler said. He glanced over his shoulder at his sister.
"You got an anti-virus, right?""Yes. Avast, same as you," Harriet said. She frowned.
"Why?" Instead of answering, Tyler clicked back into Harriet's inbox and then hovered the cursor over the email.
"What are you doing?" Harriet said. When she realised, she starting shouting,
"Wait, Tyler, don't open that! You don't know what-""Too late," Tyler said as he opened the email. On-screen, the message inside was visible for both siblings to read.
"Greetings Tamer,
This is being sent to you as you have been selected as an esteemed Digimon Tamer. Press Accept to start your journey. Press Decline and forget this email has never happened."
"Well, there you go then," Tyler said, pointing at the screen.
"You want to get rid of it, just press Decline.""You trust some random email?" Harriet asked, her voice unusually high.
"And what's a... Digimon Tamer?""Well, if you want to know..." A sly smile appeared on Tyler's face and he moved the mouse over to the 'Accept' button.
"Oh no you don't!" Harriet lunged and attempted to wrestle the mouse out of Tyler's hand. In doing so however, her hands ended up slamming on the left mouse button and with a resounding
click! she selected the 'Accept' button.
"Crap!" When her brother burst into laughter, she gave him a hard shove.
"You jerk! You planned that!" she shouted.
"Don't look at me," Tyler said, still smirking.
"You were the one who pressed the button. Now let's see..." He turned his attention back to the screen. After clicking "Accept", an extra bit of text had been added to the email.
"Congratulations Tamer!
You are now a certified Digimon Tamer. There should be a new program on your desktop titled “Digital Assistant Device”. Start the program up and you should receive your very own Digivice soon! How exciting! See you soon.
-AKM"
"What!?" Harriet squeaked.
Tyler laughed.
"Ha! Your computer is screwed!" he said. After Harriet gave him another shove, he spoke again,
"Okay! Okay! Calm down! If you anti-virus isn't going off, it's probably fine!""It just added some random program to my desktop without my consent!" Harriet shot back.
"How is that fine!?"Tyler shrugged and stood up from the chair.
"Well, it's already on your computer, so you might as well check it out," he said.
"Can I go now?" Harriet slumped down on the chair with such force, it creaked under her weight.
"Yeah, fine, go!" she snapped back.
"You were no help!" When she heard the door shut behind him, she ran her fingers through her hair, trying to calm herself down. Feeling the loose bits of hair sticking out from her ponytail, she pulled the tie out before attempting to retie it. Once her hair was back in a ponytail, she took a deep breath, feeling a little less panicked, before closing the window on her computer and scanning her desktop. Just as the email had said, there was now a new program labelled "Digital Assistant Device". She considered attempting to delete or uninstall it, but after what had happened with the email, she somehow doubted that would work.
"Well, what do I have to lose?" she muttered to herself. What was that term some people used? YOLO? Well, whatever. Biting her lower lip, Harriet double-clicked the icon. After hearing the sound of an old-fashioned dial-up modem, her screen was suddenly filled with binary. Tempted to call Tyler back, Harriet got up and attempted to run for her door, only for a bright flash to emit from her computer screen. A moment passed as Harriet's eyesight adjusted just in time to see something she never expected. A large lump had appeared in the center of her computer screen, as if something was trying to push itself out of the monitor. Harriet's mouth gaped open as if she was trying to shout, but no sound came out. Eventually, whatever was trying to escape her computer succeed and something, a small electronic device resembling a phone, fell out and landed on her keyboard with a thunk.
Harriet could only stare. What was going on? Was she going insane? Had she fallen asleep at some point between now and receiving the email? Harriet pinched her arm hard. The pain caused her to give a sharp hiss of breath. Okay. Clearly, she was awake.
Carefully, she scooped up the strange phone in her hands. It was green in colour, and very new-looking. Had she received it under normal circumstances, she would be jumping up and down with joy, but given what had just happened, she couldn't help but hold it at arm's length. She turned it over on all sides, inspecting it from every angle. Once she was looking at the front again, she noticed only three buttons under the screen, an oval with two arrow-shaped buttons on either side. With her thumb, Harriet pressed the oval button and the screen lit up. It was completely blank, and kept flashing on and off with little beeps.
At the top of her peripheral, she noticed something open up on her computer. Harriet looked up to see her screen was back to normal - thank goodness - and some strange word document had opened up. Compared to everything else she had just experienced, this didn't really surprise her.
On the document was written a single line of text:
“Enjoy your digivice. When you’re ready, point the front of your device toward your monitor and say “Digital Gate, Open!”Harriet blinked before glancing back at the device in her hands. She
really must be going crazy, because at this point, she was actually considering doing what is said. She swallowed down a lump that started to form in her throat and, her hands shaking slightly, pointing the 'Digivice' at the screen. Quietly, she stammered,
"Digital Gate, o-o-open!"Like before, a bright flash emitted from the monitor. This time, Harriet managed to shield her eyes with one arm as she felt her body being pulled forward against her will. She felt a feeling that imagined was akin to water being sucked through a straw. After a moment, though she felt nothing at all.
When the light finally cleared, the room was empty. Harriet Burton was gone.
When Harriet eventually regained consciousness, she found herself in a large pile of people. Or at least, she assumed they were people. It was difficult to see as her glasses seemed to have fallen off during materialization, so she only really make out people-shaped blurs. She tried to get up but was unable to move thank to the crushing weight on top of her. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, whoever was at the bottom of the pile was not particularly happy about this situation as they pushed upwards, causing several people to scatter and roll away to the side, Harriet being on of them. She rolled over towards the ground, landing face first and ending up swallowing a mouthful of dirt.
"Blek!" Pushing herself up onto all fours, Harriet spat out the dirt before rubbing at her mouth with the back of one hand. She was aware of people talking around her, but didn't have any time to worry about that. She needed to find her glasses. She started crawling across the ground, hands reaching out over the dirt in search of her spectacles.
"H-has anyone seen my glasses?" she called out to anyone nearby who might be listening.
