Chapter 37
It's strange to be waiting at the Fuchsia Pokémon Center alone. Usually you'd be trying to keep Togetic occupied so she didn't go zooming off to bother other customers, and Duskull would take advantage of your distraction to pull his own pranks. Rats might be there on the other side of the table, barely tall enough to see over its edge. She only ever agreed to come if you bought food, and sometimes even that wasn't enough to get her to leave the island. Lazy.
You toy with a corner of your newspaper. At first it was funny to read all the people freaking out about Mewtwo getting stolen even though they have nothing to worry about. But after article on article about investigations, and people wanting laws against pokémon like Mewtwo, and mentions of Team Rocket threading across every page, it's starting to feel like big things are happening, big things that you started but don't really understand.
You should comb through every sentence, try to tell if people are figuring out what's really going on, if they think they know where you are. Instead you're sitting with the newspaper open on the table, staring at the empty space across from you and reminiscing, and that's how Officer Feldhorn finds you when he comes in on his usual morning rounds. It's like he stepped out of your memory, identical down to the scatter of doughnut-dust on his uniform, and you smile when he sees you and comes straight over.
"Jade!" he says. "It's been a while. What have you been up to?"
"Hello, Officer Feldhorn. I went to Indigo Plateau to see the tournament." It's easy to fall back into your old rhythm.
"Of course. That must have been, ah, exciting. I hope you weren't, well... All this business with the Champion and Mewtwo..."
"Yeah! The finals were really cool. The Champion was scary, though."
"Oh? Well, I'm glad you had a good time." Officer Feldhorn takes a long sip of his coffee.
"Are you investigating? Are you going to catch the bad guys?" You grin. He has no idea, and no hope of catching you if he did.
"Oh, no. No, that mess is way over my head, and thank God. It's League business. But don't worry, everybody's on alert here. We'll keep Fuchsia safe."
"That is good. Did you hear about what happened in Viridian City? In the Team Rocket base? I heard the bad guy who stole Mewtwo had something to do with that." Your grin only gets wider when you think of the look the great Nathaniel Morgan would give you if he heard you say that.
"The Viridian base, yes," Officer Feldhorn says. "I hadn't heard they connected it to Indigo, though. I suppose since Mewtwo was involved it wouldn't be surprising if the same person was responsible for both."
"It was him. It was definitely him."
"Well, I know the case is in capable hands. They'll get the guy one way or another." Officer Feldhorn's gaze is shifting around, like he's thinking about leaving. You're offended. Isn't he happy to see you again? How can he want to leave already?
"He stole one of my pokémon, too. I think he might have left him in the Viridian Base. Would the police have found him? Is there any way I can get him back?"
"What? One of your pokémon? Not your togetic?"
"No, Togetic is fine. But the gr--the guy did not have him during the League tournament, so I thought he might have lost my pokémon in Viridian." You're proud of this bit of reverse deduction. It sounds so reasonable!
I'm afraid I can't help much," Officer Feldhorn says, frowning. "I wasn't part of that investigation either, so I don't know anything specific. But if they found any pokémon during the raid, they would have tried to return them to their owners. If they couldn't figure out who they belonged to, they would have held them for a few weeks, but if nobody came to claim them, they would have re-homed them or released them. But, Jade, that was, what, almost two months ago? You should definitely stop by the station and see if they have your pokémon there, but I'm afraid you might be too late. I wish you had mentioned this earlier."
It takes effort to suppress your scowl. So now Officer Feldhorn's going to try and make you feel bad about the great Nathaniel Morgan's steelix, too? "I thought something else happened to him," you say, and don't really try not to snap--it's not like it's Officer Feldhorn's business anyway. "But thank you. I will ask at the station."
Officer Feldhorn nods, but he's looking at you in a way you don't like. Too intently. "Good luck, Jade. I hope you find your pokémon. It's been a rough couple of months, hasn't it? Team Rocket..." He breaks off, shaking his head.
"I hope so too. Thank you for your help."
"It was good to see you again, Jade," Officer Feldhorn says. "I'd been wondering where you'd gone off to. Take care of yourself out there, you hear?"
"Of course, Officer Feldhorn." He has no idea. Of course you're going to be fine. He moves on, chats a bit with the nurse. It has been a long time since you've been here, hasn't it? You'd been tired of waiting and eager to get started on your journey. Sitting here alone with your newspaper, you feel almost... something. You don't know.
Officer Feldhorn didn't give you the in with the police that you'd hoped for, but at least he gave you an idea of what to do next. It's time to move on. You fold your paper neatly before you chuck it in the trash.
Half an hour later you're cursing your blind optimism. Of course the police weren't going to help. When have they ever helped you?
Idiots. All they want to do is make you feel bad, acting like it's so unreasonable that you'd only be going to them now, looking for your pokémon. Treating you like you're the criminal somehow. They wouldn't even say for sure if they'd found a steelix in the base or not. You're too late, was all they would tell you, acting the whole time like you were the worst trainer ever. They released all the pokémon they found that no one had claimed, unless they were part of an ongoing investigation. Too late, too late.
Hot anger roils your insides while you walk. Well, that's good, isn't it? They released Steelix, so he's out there in the wild somewhere, which means he'll hear the Onix's message. You'll find him. All you have to do is wait.
You're too mad now to teleport, too angry to concentrate. It's a properly gray and cold autumn day in Viridian, fizzing with rain that doesn't fall so much as hang in the air, turning everything glistening. You walk and walk and wait for the outdoor chill to take the heat out of your mood.
You should have considered where your footsteps might carry you, if you weren't paying attention. You look up and, with a jolt, see that just ahead is the hole in the city where Mewtwo burst through, the crater still yawning open, wreckage left strewn about, slicked dark and wet. You hesitate. Why bother? Why bother when you as good as know it's pointless?
You don't know. You don't. At least you should check the situation out. You force yourself forward again, with purpose this time.
The whole site's cordoned off, festooned with police tape coming unstuck to hang in slack bright yellow strands. Did Team Rocket abandon the base? You can't imagine that. This was the seat of Giovanni's power. It's almost as historic as Saffron now. You can't imagine them giving it up over one little raid, even if Mewtwo did a lot of damage. But there's no one about, no one clearing debris or starting new construction, and you hear nothing from the great dark crack that leads down to the base proper.
What would you find below, if not a bustling underground office? Would there still be rubble where Mewtwo pulled down the ceiling? Makeshift barricades, bodies long cold and motionless, staring in the dark?
No point speculating. The police might have taken Steelix, yes, or perhaps his ball was missed. Maybe it rolled off under underneath a shelf or got wedged in a corner or something. Even if it's unlikely, it would be best to rule it out. Return to your tunnel, creep back into the base. See for yourself what Team Rocket's left behind.
You stand outside the taped-up crater until a chilly autumn mist less falls than seems to sweep through town, hanging clammily in the air. The trailing strips of police tape flutter and whisper against each other.
You can always come back later. It's not like Steelix is going to be here anyway. You take a final look around the site, then up and down the street. All deserted.
And now... Now, yes, you can definitely concentrate. Cold, rainy Viridian disappears, and a second later you're standing on the beach, the sun warm on your mist-soaked skin.
Monday stretches on, endlessly, and the child can enjoy none of it, whether on the beach or in the jungle or lying on its couch. No matter how it tells itself to relax, that all it needs to do is wait, its thoughts keep turning back to Steelix. It's fine. He's in the wild now. Someone will know where he is.
The child thinks this while it pats unenthusiastically at sandcastles, or stares blankly at uninteresting TV. It thinks this extra-hard when it sees the great Nathaniel Morgan out on the beach, away up the coast, playing with his pokémon. But especially at times like that it's hard to ignore the thought that there is, after all, still one place Steelix might be, and that's with Team Rocket. And who would know what Team Rocket would do with a pokémon they took from one of their own grunts?
The child isn't going to ask. The great Nathaniel Morgan's always so mean, and he was especially bad the last time. If it turns out Steelix is with Team Rocket and the child can't find him because of that, it would only serve him right.
This is what the child thinks, again and again, while the hours unspool. It's pointless; there's nothing it can do now, not its problem in the first place, nothing that will get better with--worrying? It's not worrying. But nothing seems to move in the hot, still island air but its racing thoughts. Nothing can keep its attention. The child spends another miserable afternoon unable to concentrate on anything at all, waiting, it seems, for something it can't articulate.
The great Nathaniel Morgan's out on the beach again at sunset. The child watches, for a long time, considering its options. Then it goes to make another sandwich.
The sunset's no more than a pink and purple bruise at the horizon, stars glimmering above in the blue-black of proper night. The great Nathaniel Morgan sits with Raticate curled up against his side, scratching behind the pokémon's ears. The child approaches cautiously, holding the sandwich out in front of it like a shield. Any second Mightyena's going to come charging out of the trees. Any second everything will start to go downhill.
She doesn't, though. And the great Nathaniel Morgan is so absorbed in whatever he's thinking about that the child probably could have walked right up next to him without him noticing. Instead it stops a couple yards short and waits, almost wanting to turn back. The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't even realize it's there, and if it turns back now, nothing bad can happen. But that won't help. "Great Nathaniel Morgan," the child says, and both human and raticate jump, immediately in panic. It's actually kind of funny.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" The great Nathaniel Morgan says, struggling to his feet. Raticate puts himself between the child and his trainer fur puffed up real big and tail slapping in the sand next to him.
"You cannot beat me by yourself," the child tells him, but it keeps glancing towards the jungle, all three of them do, no doubt thinking the same thing: is Mightyena going to show up?
"Try me," Raticate says. Empty bluster. The great Nathaniel Morgan looks poised to run away, but he must know there's no point trying. He's watching the trees. Still Mightyena doesn't appear.
"I brought you a sandwich," the child says, holding it out towards the great Nathaniel Morgan.
"What the fuck is it with you and fucking sandwiches all of a sudden? I don't want your shitty sandwich. I want you to fuck off. Is that so fucking hard? Piss off, Freak."
"I wanted to ask you a question," the child says, resolutely holding up its offering.
"I don't answer to fucking murderers," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. "Get lost."
"I am not a murderer," the child says, and it can't stop its heart from racing, even though it knew that was coming. "I am not, I am not! Stop--stop!" Its fingers press divots into the sandwich-bread. It can't even say everything it wants to say, it can't start, or it might never stop. It tries to ignore Raticate, bunched up to spring, no doubt expecting the child to attack at any second. It's not going to. It's squeezing the sandwich so hard there's peanut butter on its fingers.
The great Nathaniel Morgan stands with arms crossed, expression stony. "You know," he says after a second, "if it was really bothering you, you could always just go"--he makes walking motions with his fingers--"and get the guy and take him home or some shit. It hasn't been that long. He could still be okay, who knows."
"I cannot," the child says, without thinking. And then, "Even if I did, Mewtwo would kill him in a couple days anyhow."
"Like he's gonna kill me," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. His expression doesn't change.
"No--no," the child says. Is that what he's actually been worried about the entire time? "He cannot kill you. Because of Absol." Even Mewtwo wouldn't go against her.
The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't give any indication of what he thinks of that. After a pause, the child says, "I wanted to ask you a question."
No response. Raticate turns and nudges his trainer's leg, looking imploringly up at him with the odd nervous glance spared for the child. The great Nathaniel Morgan bends down to pick him up, holding the rat bundled in his arms, but still he doesn't say anything. It's like he's trying to stare the child to death.
"I wanted to know, in Team Rocket, if they got a pokémon... What would they do with it? Like a good pokémon. If they stole a really good pokémon, would they sell it? Would they let a Rocket take it for their team? Or, or would they keep it? Or use it somehow?" the child says.
"I ain't gonna talk about Rocket with you," the great Nathaniel Morgan says flatly.
Well, at least it's some kind of answer. "It is important," the child says. No response. "Really."
Raticate squirms around in his trainer's arms, and the great Nathaniel Morgan hikes him up to a more comfortable position, stroking his nose. Raticate won't be mollified. The look he gives the child is poisonous.
"I brought you a sandwich," the child says helplessly, holding it up.
"Why the fuck are you even out here, Freak?" The great Nathaniel Morgan says. "I told you to fuck off I don't even know how many goddamned times, and you just keep coming back. You don't like me, I don't like you, so why won't you just piss off and leave me alone?"
"I told you, I have to ask you something. I mean it, I need to know."
"And I told you, I ain't answering. So for the last fucking time, get out of here."
"You really ought to leave," Raticate adds. "I will bite you if you don't go away."
Oh, sure. You'd like to see him try. But the flash of anger fades just as quickly as it came on. The child stands and holds the sandwich, stickily. It can't meet both their glares. It really ought to go. "I knew you were probably going to be mean, but I had to try. Please, tell me?"
The great Nathaniel Morgan snorts. "Fucking 'please?' Really? You think that shit is gonna work on me?"
"You do not have to be out here in the forest," the child says. "You can come back to the house if you want to sleep in a bed or get food or anything. Are you not hungry?"
"Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather crash out in the dirt than worry about somebody shanking me in my sleep."
"I am not going to--why are you being weird about this? You were on Team Rocket, you know they kill people, all the time! And you stayed with them and you did stuff for them and you did not go on about them killing you in your sleep and everything."
"So you're saying you're as bad as Team Rocket? Glad we're on the same page."
"No! That is not... That is not what I meant," the child says, holding back tears. He's so mean. Every time it forgets how mean he is, somehow, even though it thinks that it remembers. The child looks away, strangling the sandwich again. He's right. Why did it even come out here? Who cares what happens to his stupid steelix, anyway? "I--I only wanted to ask..." It loses its nerve halfway through, not even sure what it actually wants to do here anymore.
"For Christ's sake," the great Nathaniel Morgan says after a moment. "Give me the goddamned sandwich already."
The child turns to him, perplexed. The great Nathaniel Morgan is as blank-faced as before, but Raticate's scowling. "Well?" The great Nathaniel Morgan says. "Did you want me to take it or not? Hand it the fuck over already."
The child steps forward, hesitantly, and holds the sandwich out to him again. The great Nathaniel Morgan shifts Raticate to a one-handed grip so he can take it, then has to lean down almost immediately and deposit his pokémon in the sand. "Sorry, Buddy, you're just too heavy," he grunts. Raticate stays pressed up against his trainer's leg, glaring at the child, while the great Nathaniel Morgan straightens up again.
"Does that mean you will come back now?" the child asks.
"They got a system," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. "Computer thing. Tells them all the pokémon they've got and where they are. Same as with people. If they know what happened to a pokémon, it'll be in there."
"Oh," the child says. "Oh, you mean, I should go look it up? In the computer? Do you... Do you know how to do that?"
"Fuck no." Somehow the great Nathaniel Morgan seems angrier now than he was before, even though he's actually helping. He looks like he's going to squash the sandwich. "And just what was so motherfucking important that you needed to know that?"
"Nothing," the child says. "Nothing, I... I was only wondering if maybe that was another way to find Mew. That is all."
The great Nathaniel Morgan snorts. "You done, then? Can I fucking go, or are you going to jump me and drag me back here if I try?"
"You can go," the child says. "You could always go. I was not going to stop you."
"Oh, for the first time in your fucking life?" The great Nathaniel Morgan says. "Come on, Raticate." The rat stays where he is while his trainer trudges towards the jungle, keeping watch until the great Nathaniel Morgan's what he must consider a safe distance away. Then he turns and scampers after. The two of them disappear into the shadows under the trees.
The child's left by itself, to lick peanut butter off its fingers and think. So the Rockets' computers can tell it where Steelix is, if they have him. That kind of thing sounds like a job for...
The child sighs. Not tonight. It doesn't even want to think about that tonight. Tomorrow it will go to see Onix, and if it's lucky, that will be the end of things.
"Weeks?" you shout, flames blazing high. Onix groans and turns his snout aside, boulders grinding and shifting all down his length, scrapes and clatters sounding from where his tail winds away out of sight.
"Yes," he says. "I told you to wait a bit, didn't I? I thought you understood. I only just finished sending your message."
"Only just finished?" It's Tuesday. It's been days.
"You can't expect these things to happen in the blink of an eye," Onix says. "Life moves more slowly underground than at the surface."
The blink of an eye. The blink of an eye? You lash your tail, flames sprouting from your palms as well as your head. "You sound distressed," the onix says, which doesn't make sense. You didn't say anything. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize how urgent this was. I forget, sometimes, how fast life moves up here."
"It's not your fault," you say as much to yourself as to him. Calm the flames. You were stupid to hope. As though things could ever be so easy. "But do you think there's a chance? He could still answer in the next couple of days, right? Especially if he was close. He shouldn't be far away."
"Perhaps," the onix says, the last syllable trailing off into a prolonged scraping noise that even you can tell indicates serious uncertainty.
Your fire has died back a bit, but small flares still travel up your arms at intervals. You're nauseous. You sit down with your back against the tunnel wall, and now you have to think, which is the worst thing. Team Rocket or the police? Or Viridian. You're going to have to figure out what to do about Team Rocket, fast.
"If you were a steelix, where do you think you would go? If you were looking for your trainer," you say at last. Steelix is still looking for the great Nathaniel Morgan, isn't he? He wouldn't just abandon his trainer. But he might give up, or go elsewhere to look for information, or to regroup.
The onix lets out a great gusty sigh, one that's almost whooping, air forced through narrow channels in stone. He lays his chin on the ground so his eye's level with your head. "Hard to say, without knowing him. Your steelix or his trainer. I know so little about the surface world, and he's been out in it with this human. Anything you know about him, what he likes or dislikes, would be more useful."
You shake your head slowly. No hope of that unless you can extract information from the great Nathaniel Morgan, but he doesn't want to talk to you, and you don't want to talk to him. He's suspicious enough as it is.
"What are you so anxious about?" the onix asks.
"I need to get Steelix back to his trainer," you say.
"You alone? Why isn't this steelix's trainer here?"
"He... can't come. And yes, I have to do it alone." Or could you ask Absol? No. That would mean admitting you'd told the great Nathaniel Morgan you had his steelix in the first place. "So you don't know where you would go? Anywhere in Kanto?"
"Where is Kanto?" the onix asks.
"You know, the region you live in? This half of the continent?"
"Ah. Some human idea, is that it? The earth has no boundaries." The onix raises his head and sways faintly while he thinks, clicking and grinding. "But no, I think not. Were he anywhere nearby, he would have heard my message already. How large is 'Kanto?' Perhaps I'm misunderstanding."
"Never mind," you say. It's pointless, really. If the onix hasn't heard anything, he hasn't heard anything. And if the great Nathaniel Morgan's steelix intends to meet up with his trainer again, which surely he must, there's no reason for him to go far away.
Unless maybe he believed his trainer was dead. If he saw him sprawled out bloody, unconscious with his chest torn open. Maybe he'd go far away, then, and never want to come back.
Or maybe he never left Viridian in the first place. You sit rubbing the back of your neck, for what must be much longer than you realized, because the Onix asks, "Is something wrong? I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I'm sure we'll be able to find your steelix friend. I'm afraid it may simply need more time."
"No, no, I'm fine," you say. "Thank you for your help. I was just thinking. You'll keep listening, right? In case anyone tries to answer?"
"Of course," the onix says. "I'll be right here. Wait a while, and then come back and see me. Perhaps wait, oh... a 'week?' I think that might be the right amount of time."
A week from now you'll be most of the way to Orre. Your stomach clenches. Team Rocket or the police. Or Viridian. "Thank you," you say again. "I guess I should go. I have... other things to take care of."
They don't let you see the actual pokémon, at least not until you show them the money. The tokens, they won't even take regular money here, only what falls into the hoppers of their flashing slot machines. The coins themselves are collectible, kept as souvenirs by tourists who come to spend a weekend gambling.
In any case, they don't let you see the pokémon, only pictures advertising what your big wins can get you. Supposedly this is because it's inhumane to keep the pokémon on display, in cages or tanks for patrons to consider. Instead they're painted on the walls along with their prices: abra 500 tokens, growlithe 350. There's Porygon, too, haloed by golden streaks, at a whopping 10,000. No steelix that you can see.
Slot machines whoop and beep behind you, their multicolored lights lending odd hues to the garish wall paintings. It's dim except for the token counter and the prize claim and the bar, which are lit up under marquees with smiling uniformed attendants, just begging for you to come and spend your money. And you--who are you? Now you are Aina Bell, eighteen and fresh out of school, maybe thinking of blowing one of your first real paychecks on a night of games and liquor. Your hair is the most perfect pink--because it's natural, of course, not dyed--and your cool black jacket is covered in patches of clefairy, furfrou, purrloin, all your favorite pokémon. The only thing that could say "Team Rocket" louder is the actual all-black-red-R.
Unfortunately, the attendant at the prize counter is too dense to recognize that.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but you're mistaken. It's true there were some criminal elements involved with the slots several years ago, but that was all dealt with before current management even arrived in Celadon."
"But I really, really need to look something up in the system," you say. "I forgot my password. Please?"
"No, Ma'am, our company software is for employees only."
"Well, you can look it up. I seriously need... I am an employee!" How are you supposed to prove it? Secret handshake? ID card--you don't have one anymore. "Steal pokémon for profit, exploit pokémon for profit, all pokémon exist for the glory of Team Rocket?" you say hopefully. Ugh, that isn't the whole thing. What's the secret part? You never got to hear the secret part!
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I really can't help you. Next, please?" She leans around to smile blindingly at whoever's next.
"No, listen," you start, but the next person shoves past you, and the prize corner attendant is somehow already in desperately intense conversation with them.
You feel the old flicker of anger, the desire to vault over the desk and grab the attendant and force her by any means necessary to look Steelix up in her computer. But no, no. In front of everyone here? Not a good idea. Not, you think sternly to yourself, and to the claws that have slid out from your fingertips, curled inward in your fists, a good idea.
Instead you head for the back wall, decked with posters advertising musical acts coming soon to the casino, and tug experimentally at some corners. Apparently the prize corner attendant suddenly has attention to spare, because she calls after you, "Leave the posters alone, Ma'am! I will call security!"
So that's no good.
A couple minutes later you're outside in a cold overcast afternoon, watching your breath mist in the casino lights. Nearby buildings are plastered with brightly-colored posters depicting celebrities and video game characters, advertising card games, video slots, lottery tickets, magic shows and pokémon contests and comedians and strip clubs and every possible kind of entertainment. Somehow all the neon only makes the place feel darker.
Well, you couldn't really have expected more than that. Red was able to walk in the front door years ago, but while Team Rocket may not have left, they did at least get smarter. You stand and think, and think, and then you go around behind the casino building. There are signs about employees only, but nobody's guarding the loading dock or the small back door. It's locked when you try it. You're in no mood for locks.
The door crashes inward with just one solid kick, and you freeze for a second, waiting for someone to jump at you from inside. The back room is dim and dusty, a few coats hung up by the door, rain boots that look like they've been there for years lurking below. There are racks of old and broken electronics, somebody's lunchbox on a shelf, crinkling old notices about employee conduct stuck up on the wall. The sounds of the casino come through to you faintly. It sounds like a band's started playing.
You creep forward. There are voices nearby, but not in this room, you're pretty sure. Tall stacked shelves give way abruptly to a wall, a door that wants a key card and, when that's forced, a hallway with more doors branching. You wander on, following sounds of conversation to a break room, a couple off-duty Rockets chatting over coffee from the machine in the corner. They stop and stare when you come in, but they have no reason to expect anyone back here who isn't one of them.
"Hello," you say. "I am new. I forgot my password. Can you help me? I need to look a pokémon up in the database."
"Working inventory, huh?" says one of the Rockets, dark and regal and making his casino uniform look haughty somehow. "You're supposed to be in uniform, even though you won't be seeing customers. Sadie'd have your hide if she caught you back here looking like that."
"I know. I... I forgot my uniform. I am sorry," you say.
"Jesus," the second Rocket says. "Don't be pathetic. Go on, Ekon, be the shoulder to cry on or whatever. I ain't got time for this shit."
"Always the charmer, Landon," Ekon says blandly. He sets his coffee down and comes towards you. "Come on, then. What did you need to look up?"
"Steelix. I need to know if we have one to give away tonight."
"Steelix, huh? Rare one, but not a lot of people looking for them, either. There might be." He putters off down the hall with the half-attention of someone who knows the place by heart. You probably don't even have to work so hard to keep yourself between him and a view of the broken door, but you do anyhow, staying just the faintest shade behind him. The next door opens effortlessly to his key card, and he holds it for you.
It's even darker beyond until the Rocket flicks a switch, and then you're momentarily blinded, though you can still hear Ekon's footsteps, the hum of large machinery. You blink until the world comes back into focus, and before you is a small, bare room, a couple of desks and shelves and three large computer terminals, with Ekon working one of them. Here and there amidst dusty notebooks and scraps of paper is a pokéball, some tagged with sticky notes, a couple left simply to lie, as though someone was feeling too lazy to put them away properly.
"Steelix, you said?" asks the Rocket.
"Yes, Steelix!" You hurry over to join him at the computer. There's a moment of numb horror when you see just how many lines fill up the screen. Of course you should have realized Team Rocket would have more than one steelix around. A lot more than one steelix, even. Ekon's scrolling on. Somehow it only takes him a second to announce, "Nope, no steelix in stock tonight."
"Can--can you look up a specific one? There's supposed to be one here."
"Sure. Did they not show you how to use this thing? Here." He starts in on a lecture about how to use the search system, where to click and what to type and what all the glyphs on the records mean. It would have been a lot easier if you could have just found somebody to show you the Mew computer like this. "So which one were you looking for? Where'd it come from?" Ekon asks.
"Umm, a grunt had him. The great Nathaniel Morgan."
"The... Who?" Ekon stares at you. "Wait, like Nate Morgan? That guy everybody's freaking out about because of Mewtwo?
"Yes, him."
"Why do you want to know about his stuff?" Ekon suddenly doesn't seem so breezy anymore.
"His steelix was at the Viridian Base, but they were going to transfer it here to be a prize. I am supposed to make sure it is ready to go."
"That's weird," Ekon says immediately, and it's only long practice that keeps you from tensing and baring your teeth. You don't want to make him more suspicious than he already is.
"I do not make the rules," you say instead, hesitantly.
"Yeah, no shit. I guess I shouldn't even be surprised by management's crazy ideas at this point," Ekon says. A couple more clicks, a little more typing, and he's magicked up the answer.
"Oh. Huh, no, it says it got lost," Ekon says, and you lean around him to get a better view of the screen. It's like he says--a brief entry, Steelix, male, and wow, is that really his level? There's the great Nathaniel Morgan's name, the same as you're used to seeing on the pokédex's screen. And there, at the bottom of the entry: "Lost or stolen."
So even Team Rocket doesn't know. You barely register Ekon's next words. "Are you sure you understood right? It was supposed to be this steelix? I mean, why would they be sending that guy's pokémon here to sell?"
"I do not know." Maybe if you pretend to need to do your job now, he'll go away.
"Just seems like a bad idea, is all I'm saying. Unless it's some kind of bait deal," Ekon says. "Like, if the guy really has Mewtwo, you don't want to futz with his pokémon and get him all pissed off, you know?"
"Yes," you say heavily. "I know."
Dread sits burning in the pit of the child's stomach, and as the sun slides down the horizon its mood slips with it. It's already five, and it feels like the child's wasted all its time already, like any minute now it's going to have to release Mewtwo and tell the great Nathaniel Morgan that he's never getting his steelix back. All that time it had, thought it had, and now nothing left.
The child doesn't even attempt to concentrate on television. It sits up in its room mulling over options, all none of them, and trying not to think about the master ball, pulsing like a bad tooth in its drawer, waiting for release. No amount of reminding itself that it will get to see its friends, too, that it will finally have Titan and Rats and War and Togetic and everyone back, does a bit of good. The child descends for dinner but can't do more than pick at one thing and then another, unenthused even by chocolate or the last few gummies that didn't go into the great Nathaniel Morgan's sandwich. Eating doesn't make it feel better. It gets up and roams the house, turning sharply aside when it realizes which room it's been moving towards. It crosses back through the living room to see Absol appeared, as if by magic, on the couch, and suddenly knows what it's been looking for the whole time.
"Absol, do you ever realize you did a bad thing?" the child asks, climbing up to sit next to her. She turns her head slightly, regarding it from one red eye.
"Of course."
Even the thought of Absol doing something wrong is unfathomable, much less that she admits it so casually. The child doesn't know how to follow that and sits staring at its hands instead. "What was it?" it asks, finally.
"Most absol, we see what concerns us. The weather, our prey. Our elders. We are Fate's caretakers in the land where we were born. But not me. I saw another place. Fate had chosen me to go there, and I refused. For too long."
"So I guess you didn't do something."
"The result is the same. It caused much grief, and not only for me." Absol lays her head down between her paws but continues to look up at the child.
"What did you do about it? To, to fix it?" the child asks.
"There is no fixing broken Fate," Absol says. "I did what I should always have done. I left. There was nothing else to do."
That wouldn't help anything. Maybe it helped Absol, but it can't help the child. It sits and fidgets. The light coming in through the windows is orangening, the shadows growing long. "If you want to free your brother, you can do it," Absol says. "Are you worried he'll be angry?"
"What?" It can't even figure out what she's talking about for a moment. "No, I'm not talking about Mewtwo. I'll let him out tonight to get my pokémon back."
Absol's quiet for a while. Then she asks, "Do you think it's right, to leave him in the master ball except for when you need him?"
"Absol, he kills people," the child snaps. She can be as bad as the great Nathaniel Morgan when she starts in on something. "If you want to let him out so bad, do it yourself. I already told you I'll do it in a little bit anyway. Stop bothering me about it."
"It's not a question of what I'll do," Absol says. "I'm asking about you, and what you think is right."
"Yes, I know. I know you can't do anything to help, ever. Because you saw that he stays in his master ball, didn't you? So you can't let him out yourself. You can't go against Fate, so stop trying to guilt me into doing it instead."
"You know what you ought to do," Absol says. "All I can do is remind you."
Don't leave me alone in the dark! Blood on the walls, and fire, and a man with a gun. "No, I don't," the child says. "I don't know anymore. I don't know what I should do. But I'm going to let Mewtwo out later, and I don't want to talk about it right now."
"It can be difficult to know what's right sometimes. But if you're struggling, at least you're trying to understand. Perhaps that's better than nothing."
Absol certainly never seems to struggle with anything. "I don't know what's wrong with me, Absol. I keep screwing up all the time. I didn't think that finding Mew was going to be easy, but I didn't think I'd be so bad at it, either." The child rubs its hands together and looks out at the coloring sky. "I keep doing things and then feeling bad about them later. I didn't used to do that. I don't know what happened."
Absol stretches out a paw to lay it on the child's leg. "You are still young. You are learning. That's what making mistakes means."
"But I didn't," the child insists. "And I used to be even younger. You said it yourself, I should be old enough to do this. Something's wrong."
"Everything happens according to Fate," Absol says. At least she isn't worried about that. She's seen you rescuing Mew, and she must think you're on the right track. So why doesn't it feel that way?
"But isn't Fate bad sometimes?" the child asks. "Like the volcano, or even Mewtwo... Mewtwo to begin with. You knew they were going to make him, didn't you? That was why you had to go to Cinnabar? That's why you let a Rocket catch you?"
Absol gives a brief, sharp nod. "But that was bad, wasn't it?" the child insists. "They made Mewtwo, and then he burned everything down. Everybody died. Mew got away, but then something happened to her... Or maybe she never even got away to begin with, somebody took her. But Fate said that was all supposed to happen."
"How could you hope to judge Fate?" Absol asks. "You have lived no more than a dozen years. How can you say what one choice will cause? How can you say that something is for good or ill? Sometimes a forest must burn for something new to grow. Rebirth only follows disaster. The order of the universe is its order. If we do not wish for all to end, we must obey it, whatever it dictates. Good or ill, it is what binds this world together."
"Well, if Fate keeps saying bad things should happen, and sometimes you have to break things to make them better, then maybe we should be trying to break Fate. If the universe is bad, and Fate wants it to stay bad, maybe we should let it fall apart so something new can start."
Absol chuckles to herself and draws her paw back in, tucking it under her body. Her amusement only stirs seething resentment in the child's chest. "It has always been the way of humans to reject Fate. And who can say who has the right of it? I do as I am bid. Your nature is to rebel. So be it. We must all be as we are."
"I'm not human," the child mutters. But it's too close, maybe. Maybe that's why it feels bad so much. It could be like Absol and not care and not feel bad about whatever happens afterwards, but then it wouldn't be able to do other things, like actually talk to humans without screwing everything up. It's like it gets the worst of both things by being in the middle. "That's not the point, though. I think maybe I... I don't know. I might have done something wrong. I don't know what to do."
"There may be nothing," Absol says. "What's done is done. But if you wish to go forward with a clear conscience, perhaps you should reconsider releasing your brother."
The child grits its teeth against a surge of anger and slides off the couch. Absol doesn't call after it, but it wouldn't have looked back at her even if she had. All she cares about is Mewtwo. She probably doesn't even care where the child's going now. It should have known better than to try and talk with her about anything.
The sunset outside's blazing at the height of its glory. There's still time, though. There's still time.
"Tell me again why this steelix's trainer isn't here looking for him," Onix says. "Is it scared to come down here? Even with a pokémon like you to fight for it?"
"No," you mutter. "He can't. I told you."
"I'm not impressed by this trainer. A steelix is a difficult creature to misplace! Perhaps your friend has decided he doesn't care so much for this trainer of his. Are you so sure he wishes to be reunited with it after all?"
"Yes. He does. His trainer isn't... bad. They like each other."
The onix makes a raspy grinding noise. There are probably all kinds of nuances to what his different rock-sounds mean, while all you can say is it sounds like somebody walking in gravel. "Perhaps not so much anymore."
"No. They do. Steelix didn't run away, and his trainer didn't lose him. They got separated."
Well, you're definitely sure that this particular grindy noise has to be inquisitive.
"They got in trouble with Team Rocket, and then the trainer, he... couldn't go back and look for Steelix afterwards."
"And he's only now become concerned with where his pokémon got off to?" Onix still sounds unimpressed.
"No. No, he was already--look, it isn't important. The point is I need to find him tonight. We have to leave tomorrow morning. I have to find him tonight."
"This trainer would simply leave one of its pokémon behind?" Onix raises himself up, arching towards an attack position, maybe unconsciously.
"No! I mean... He wouldn't have a choice. I have to go, and without me... I was supposed to be the one to find Steelix. Then he wouldn't, I--I wanted to find him."
Onix makes a long, stony grumble and says, "I don't understand. You surface-dwellers seem to have trouble saying what you mean."
And what are you supposed to say? That it's your fault Steelix got lost in the first place? That the only reason the great Nathaniel Morgan hasn't been out scouring Kanto for him is that you told him you knew where he was, and he actually believed you? You don't say anything, and Onix doesn't say anything, and for a while both of you simply sit there in the dim light of your flames.
"There's nothing I can do to hurry an answer along," Onix says eventually.
"I know," you sigh, clenching a fist and then opening it to moodily regard the ash slurry within. "I should have started looking earlier. I thought this was going to be easy."
Onix grunts and shifts position with a series of grinding crunches, laying his chin down on the floor of the tunnel. "Where have you looked?"
"Everywhere," you say emphatically. "I looked everywhere." Except. For a second the underground tunnel reminds you of an underground hallway, metal-clad, dark, claustrophobic. The heat of your own flames is suddenly uncomfortable, sucking away all the oxygen. You dig your fingers into the cracks in the tunnel wall behind you. This is what's real. Nothing of what's in your head can hurt you.
"He's probably underground, then," Onix is saying from somewhere. "Steelix dive deep. Much deeper than you could ever manage. I'm sorry we couldn't find him faster, but find him we will. You just have to keep coming back."
"I will," you say, and your words sound as far away as Onix's. You close your eyes a second, take a deep breath, and will yourself back to the present. "There is... There is one place I haven't looked. Where he might be."
"Oh? And why haven't you?" Onix asks. His tone betrays nothing more than mild curiosity, like he thinks you're saying this for a lark. You stretch your legs out and lean back on your hands. The tunnel really isn't comfortable to sit in.
"It's... bad. It's a bad place. Besides, Steelix probably isn't there. Somebody would have found him by now and moved him somewhere else."
Onix groans and grinds for a couple of seconds. "But you don't know."
"I don't." You basically do. But if you go there and Steelix is gone, then what are you supposed to do? That's your last option. And you don't even want to go in the first place. "I think maybe I have to look."
"Do you want me to come with you?" the onix asks, and you stare at him, uncomprehending. "If your trainer can spare a pokéball, perhaps you could bring me along. I don't know what help I would be, but I thought I would offer."
Your flames burn a little brighter. You can feel them licking high. No pokéball necessary. You could teleport both of you to the Viridian base. And it's true, you don't know how Onix would help, but it would be nice not to have to look all by yourself. Or maybe he could clear some of the rubble, if that's still there. As long as they got rid of the bodies. It would be bad... It would be bad if Onix saw those. And if he realized the sort of place you were in, well, he probably doesn't know what Team Rocket is, but no doubt he'd be curious about how Steelix ended up in such a weird place, and if he started to ask questions...
You sigh, and your fire dims again. "No," you say. "I think I had better go by myself. But thank you. You're nice."
Onix thrums in... something. Sympathy, or appreciation of the compliment. "I can tell you've been working very hard. If this place is somewhere you think you need to go, I'm sure you'll be able to do it."
He has a lot of faith in you, for someone you barely know. Somehow that only puts an extra hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach. Being a hero sucks a lot sometimes. "Yeah," you say. "Yeah." But for now you're going to stay where you are, watching the shadows dance around your firelight, for just a little while longer.
The sun's long sunk below Viridian's skyline, so the alleys are dark and only a few scraps of color linger in the sky. Why did you have to come here at night?
Because there's no time, of course. Tomorrow morning you have to leave. There's no other time to be here, and that's your own fault.
You're not at the crater this time, but at the hole you carved out next to a washing machine, your back-door entrance to the Rocket's base. The police have found it draped it in more of their tape. You peer in and think of what lies beyond: rough earthy passage, sloping gently downwards. Damp and slimy, too, given the weather. At the bottom it's very, very dark.
Team Rocket hasn't come back. You'd be able to hear, surely, if there was any real activity in the base. Even if they'd plugged up this particular breach, there would be people moving around, talking, laughing, if only in the distance. Instead the silence seems almost to breathe, like something living. The only living thing down there.
The storage room where Steelix was. The child knows it and even remembers, roughly, where it is. But how is it supposed to find it?
Well, it will just have to try doors until it gets the right one, won't it? The child gazes into the tunnel for another moment, then reaches out to tear away the police tape, ripping it down in one great trailing handful. A brilliant gleam starts in the child's other hand, throwing harsh light into the tunnel. It's almost worse than the darkness, the light deepening shadows wherever it can't reach and, when the child comes out into the base proper, turning stains and rust and dirt to scabrous black corruption on the walls and floor.
The child needs to check every room. The shadows on the wall shift and tremble slightly with the faint movements of its hand, with the in and out of its breathing. The sooner it looks, the sooner it can go.
Someone must have visited after Mewtwo attacked. The police, or some Rocket force. The rubble isn't gone, not entirely, but it's at least cleared out of the way so the child doesn't have to climb over anything to continue down the hall. Everything's shoved off to the side, only a few dusty hunks lying out in the middle. There are holes in the ceiling, in some of the doors. Some are stretched with police tape that shines white in the glare of the child's light. There are dark splotches on the floor, the walls, broken pieces of concrete, but no bodies. Of course someone took care of those. There's nothing to worry about. Here and there are scraps of clothing, expired bus tickets or coins glinting amidst the wreckage. Lost things, dropped things, things that might have fallen from someone's pocket. Trash. Office cruft spilling from breached rooms. But that's all there is. There's nothing to be afraid of.
The child's footsteps crunch in a layer of concrete dust. It would expect the noise to echo, to sound big in the empty corridor, but somehow it's the opposite, like the air swallows everything up. It's like the child moves through its own envelope of sound that extends just a couple of feet. Everything else is cold and silent, just like it remembers. Sometimes the child stops, heart hammering without it knowing why, and looks back over its shoulder. But nothing's ever there, of course.
First the child finds a conference room with empty chairs clustered around a table. One's pushed back and at an angle, like somebody got up and left really quickly. Or maybe that's just how it had been for a while. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with Mewtwo at all. The rooms are like that--most intact, most left exactly how they would have been on an ordinary day. In one of them there's what looks like someone's lunch abandoned and moldering on a table. It goes on, door after door, until it opens one and knows immediately where it is.
Here are the big racks where the weapons used to be, and here are the shelves for pokéballs. The depressions that held them are empty now, row on row on row. Everything is as empty and as quiet as the rest of the base. The child stands at the entrance and stares. What was it expecting, honestly? That Team Rocket would leave so many valuable pokémon lying around for the police to find? That the police would leave them for Team Rocket to reclaim, if they got there first? They never could have been anything but gone.
There are other storerooms in this base, surely. Maybe this is the wrong one. The child wanders between the shelves in almost dreamlike silence, footsteps soundless on the metal floor. Its light throws sharp-edged shadows from empty racks and shelf-ends, and they angle up to form great dark bars along the walls. The child reaches out and runs its finger along the top of a shelf, and it comes back frosted with dust.
Here the racks are pushed out of alignment, some toppled and twisted, bent and crushed into jutting, useless shapes. The child remembers the steelix's tail sweeping, sending hundreds of pokéballs clattering to the floor, pokémon filling the room with confused chatter, weird scents and jostling bodies. Under the dust there's what looks to be a shed feather, a long energy scuff, a bubbled bit of flooring where maybe a grimer rested.
The child paces the room, shining into every corner. Overhead, on the ceiling, is a long scrape where a steelix might have hit his head. Here's a large dark bloodstain that nobody bothered to clean up.
Empty, empty, empty. Nothing here but the detritus of the child's memories. It pushes a shelf away from the wall and now, at last, the screech of metal legs against the floor breaks the silence. It feels like the sound echoes through the empty base for a very long time.
There's nothing behind that shelf, or kicked into a corner, or wedged down in the ruins of wrecked furniture. Someone's been very thorough.
The child could leave. It could go back to Rock Tunnel, maybe, to wait out the night. There would at least be a chance that a message would come back for it, a last-minute opportunity to save everything.
It tried. It really did. This should have worked. What is it going to do if it can't find Steelix after all? Maybe it can figure that out while it's waiting.
The child's almost back to the door, not even looking, and there it is. Wedged in under one of the weapon racks, at a corner where two of them meet. In the hard light what shows up is mostly the glare reflected off the plastic, but the child doesn't have to see colors to know what it is. It has to actually lift the rack up to un-wedge the ball, which is maybe why it's still here, when all the others are gone.
What are the chances, out of all the pokéballs that were here to begin with? Basically none. The child tells itself it's not worth getting its hopes up, despite its galloping pulse. Its finger hovers above the ball's front button. It can't bring itself to press it, not yet. It takes a deep breath and gives the button a quick tap, already squinting its eyes against the flash of unleashed energy.
The top of the pokéball flips up with a small click. Mirrors and wires and dark plastic gleam in the child's light. There's no pokémon inside at all, and probably never was.