Chapter 65
Time passes as quickly as it ever does when Kid is dreading something. Day bleeds into day, a blur of sunshine and violence. The battles are nothing dangerous, nothing strenuous, just like the great Nathaniel Morgan promised. Mostly he keeps asking Kid to show off its flashiest, most exotic attacks, not caring whether they actually connect. He seems giddy at the prospect of someone who can do aeroblast and toxic thread, and dark void and sacred sword and more besides.
But sometimes, even in friendly fights that don’t matter, Kid catches something in Raticate’s expression, the way Graveler moves, that reminds it of rushing enemies in the dark, and it hesitates. Lashes out blindly. Loses control.
The great Nathaniel Morgan seems to take Kid’s inconsistency for inexperience, but Kid wonders what he’d think if it weren’t strong enough to knock his pokémon out with single shots. Would he realize it has no stomach for fighting, and no talent for it anymore, and that it would be safest to leave it behind?
It does its best. It will need to fight when they go to the Cipher base. If Kid screws something up there, Cipher will catch it. It’ll go back into the lab and never come out again. And the great Nathaniel Morgan will die, too. It isn’t fair that Kid has the most responsibility now, when it’s least able to carry it.
So Kid works hard. It doesn’t look like it, because its best now is so much less than it should be. Kid works hard to get good at fighting again, and it knows it is failing, and the great Nathaniel Morgan is satisfied because he doesn’t realize how hard it’s trying. Kid’s lie is working, and it couldn’t be more miserable.
Kid fights and fights even when it doesn’t want to, until it’s sure it will vomit at the sight of any more blood, the smell of singed flesh. Then it has to stop, or risk betraying itself through some too-raw reaction. But it makes itself start again the next day, keep going, keep fighting, until one morning the great Nathaniel Morgan returns home before the sun’s even risen.
He doesn’t need to rouse Kid because it sleeps light and heard him coming and knew just what it meant. There’s no time left. Kid does its best to compose its face when the great Nathaniel Morgan looms in the doorway, made bulky and awkward by Cipher armor and a large bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hey, Kid. Sorry to wake you up. It’s time, right?” The great Nathaniel Morgan reaches into the bag. “You, uh, think you can make this fit?”
It’s another set of the chunky white armor he’s wearing. The same thing he was wearing when he found Kid, what he must always wear, down in the Cipher base. The new armor he’s brought looks meant for somebody a bit taller and skinnier than he is.
Kid nods and makes its best attempt at resizing, then plucks the breastplate from the great Nathaniel Morgan’s hands and tries it on. Okay, too tall and skinny. Kid shrinks a little, settling the shoulderpads on and fussing with the straps down the sides. Fill out a bit here, take some in there… Good. It tries to shift the breastplate again, and it holds tightly in place.
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s watching with his face scrunched up all weird. “Okay, it’s kinda fucking freaky to watch you do that,” he says. “You think you could, like, change your face at least? Goddamn weird for you to look the same except now you’re like twice as tall all of a sudden.”
Yes, Kid needs a new face. It drags its fingers down its cheeks while it thinks. Who to be? It tries to summon enthusiasm for creeping into the Cipher base in its secret disguise, ready to catch everyone completely unawares. To rescue Mew at last. All it feels is sick, stomach clenching. No good. But it has to be someone.
Who are you?
You are… you are… You are wishing you had your pokédex here. Your little store of souls, easy lives to slip into. But everything that was precious to you is gone now. Just like when you were human, watching your friends and family disappear. Just like when you were Mew, taken far from your home. All that’s left is for you to make someone new. So you are…
You are Argent Lewis, your skin wrinkling under your touch as you run your fingers down your cheeks again. Nearly fifty, grayed and hardened by a tough life in the desert. Your hair lies in tight, short curls against your scalp, and you add a couple aesthetic scars, from all the battles you’ve had. Then a couple more, because scars are cool. Perhaps you’ll be able to enjoy this after all.
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s still staring. “You look old,” he says. “That’s kind of fucked up.”
“I am Argent Lewis,” you say. “I am ready to infiltrate the evil Cipher base.”
“Well, okay. Just don’t go striking up a conversation with nobody, I guess.”
You get the rest of the armor on, taking time to fiddle with the fit, more time than you really need. And then that’s it. It’s time to go. The great Nathaniel Morgan leads you outside, and you stop, arrested by the sight of the machine waiting there.
“You have a real hover-cycle,” you say, staring at the expanse of gleaming chrome tubing. Stupid thing to say. Of course he does. You’ve heard him roaring around on it almost every day, coming or going.
“Uh, yeah.” The great Nathaniel Morgan gives you a sidelong look. “What, did you think I’d go for one of those little kiddie scooter things or something?”
You can only shake your head, overwhelmed for a moment by memories of your own stupid hover-scooter, and the pink helmet Hypno so scrupulously wore to keep her safe.
“Ready to go?” The great Nathaniel Morgan says, and you nod.
For some reason he asks, “You sure?”
You nod again, more forcefully. The great Nathaniel Morgan studies you, his gaze uncomfortably level and searching. You don’t meet his eyes. You need to distract him. You can’t have him do something stupid, like call everything off because he thinks you’re scared. “Can I drive the hover-cycle?” you ask.
“Fuck no.” And he’s grinning, and that seems to settle the matter. You feel almost sad, for some reason, following him out into the bright desert heat. You didn’t want him to stop you, after all. You really didn’t.
Outside is fine. The Cipher base is like the factory, huge and grandiose and not at all trying to hide, saw-edge roof casting dramatic shadows down its facade and the courtyard below.
You don’t even know what the base you were in looks like from the outside. Inside, though. Inside everything is familiar, from the paint on the walls to the particular kind of fluorescent lights, the hum they make. You’ve seen this all before, and you’re glad of your helmet and armor, which cover up almost everything human about you. You keep your face forward, trying to hide how your eyes dart around, watching for the scientists you’re sure will come pouring out at you any second.
The great Nathaniel Morgan pauses just inside the door. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” you say tightly. Everything’s too bright, the lights blurring out to smeared rainbows. Your heartbeat thuds loud under the ringing in your ears.
The great Nathaniel Morgan stares at you a moment longer, then blessedly turns away. “It’s a bit of a hike,” he says. “Elevator down three levels, then most of the way to the other side of the base. Just stay close. And let me do the talking.” He starts to walk away, but then pauses. “And I guess let me know if you, like, sense anything. Okay?”
You don’t trust yourself to get even one word out. You’re going in deep. Deep, deep. All you can do is nod, then follow after the great Nathaniel Morgan, and not go too fast. You want to run and get this over with, and never has the great Nathaniel Morgan seemed so maddeningly slow.
Then you’re inside the elevator, and its doors slide shut, and your way out is gone, and you have to hold in a scream as the elevator suddenly drops and then glides down and down, plunging towards the source of your nightmares.
You stare resolutely forward, but you’re sure the great Nathaniel Morgan’s watching you, every flinch, every sharp inhalation. “Look, maybe we should–” he starts, but the elevator doors open, and you push past him, into a hallway where it feels like there’s at least a little more air.
“Which way is it?” you demand. “Which way?”
“This way,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, and you can tell that now he’s worried, too, and why? He’s been working for Cipher. He knows this place. He shouldn’t be worried. Unless maybe he has another plan he hasn’t told you about, a plan to give you back to the scientists for more money than you can even imagine, the way he was going to give you to Team Rocket. They’ll put you back in the cage, and this time you’ll never be able to get free, never, never, never–
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s moving. You realize your fingers are growing out into claws, scales forming beneath your armor. You take a long, shaky breath, and smooth everything out, tease it back towards human. You’re going to do this. You’re going to rescue Mew and then never come back to a place like this ever again.
The great Nathaniel Morgan turns a corner, and when you follow you have to stop, reaching involuntarily to brace yourself against the wall. It’s busy down here. All manner of Cipher people walking, talking, laughing. Is that a voice you know? Your head snaps around, but no. Of course not. There are people in white coats, but no. Wrong base. Wrong place. Entirely different thing.
“K–Arnold?” The great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Um, Arlo? A… ndrew?”
“Argent,” you say weakly. You walk past the great Nathaniel Morgan almost in a dream. You don’t feel afraid anymore. You feel like you’re floating, like your mind isn’t properly connected to your body. It’s nice. “Come on.”
“Hold up, hold up. It’s over here.” The great Nathaniel Morgan takes the lead again, plunging into the busy corridor. You follow as close as you can, but still you bump into someone. White fabric brushes against your gauntlet. Lab coat.
“This way.” The great Nathaniel Morgan’s voice is distant. He’s looking over his shoulder, making sure you aren’t lost. You keep up. None of this feels real.
Another couple of turns, and now there’s almost no one around. That’s good. Well, that’s okay. You were fine before, after all. You could handle it. The halos around the lights still flux weirdly when you breathe in and out.
“The lab complex should be through here,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, stepping up to a control panel next to a door. You can’t hear anything he says after that; you think your heart fell out of your body when he said the word “lab.” He must know a passcode or have arranged for an ID or something, because the panel chimes and flashes green. That’s good. He knows what he’s doing. That’s good.
The door slides open.
The door.
The door opens.
The door opens, and who comes through this time?
You don’t remember falling. It’s just that now you’re on the floor, and someone’s trying to grab you. They’re lifting you up, they’re taking you from the cage. You roar and this time, this time you get your moment, you push the gurrdurr away so hard he slams into the far wall, and you’re free, they forgot their drugs, you’re free finally and you start to rise–
“Kid,” the gurrdurr wheezes. “What the–you all right? What the fuck…”
The gurrdurr is the great Nathaniel Morgan. He’s gripping the wall for support, bent double like he has a stomachache. The door’s closed. Still when you look at it you freeze because it might open again. It might. You want to look away, and you can’t look away. The door. The door. The door.
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s gotten close to you again, but not so close this time. “Come on, Kid,” he says. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“No,” you say. “No, we have to do this. We have to.”
“We ain’t doing this today.”
“We are,” you protest. “We have to!”
You know the great Nathaniel Morgan’s going to argue more, because that’s what he’s like. What you need to do is open the door yourself. You don’t need a code. You don’t want to do subtlety anymore. You force yourself back to your feet–it’s not hard, it’s not like you’re actually hurt or anything–and start to move towards the door. But even just looking at it, you find yourself thinking of it opening, and then you have to stop.
And then a couple people come around the corner, and you’ve lost your chance. “What was that?” one says. “We thought we heard–are you all right?”
“I’m fine. We’re fine,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, but then more people show up, lab coats and all, and you can’t move at all. You can’t breathe. And you must do something else, because suddenly they’re all clustering around you and making everything even worse.
“He’s fine!” The great Nathaniel Morgan’s shouting distantly. “He just needs some fresh air!” He shoves roughly past another guard in armor like his.
“Fresh air? It’s almost 120 out there!”
But the great Nathaniel Morgan grabs you, pulling you away from the group. It’s all you can do not to hit him again. “Do you want help getting him to Medical?” someone asks, and the great Nathaniel Morgan deters them somehow. You can tell he’s talking, but you can’t hear the words anymore. The world feels hazy. Somehow the great Nathaniel Morgan gets you back down the hallway and into the elevator, even though you don’t think you’re helping much. It’s only when you’re outside, abruptly, and the heat slams into you like an attack, that you really start to feel you’re back in your own body again.
“Hey. You feeling better, Kid?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks. His attention’s only half on you, the other half on the base. Waiting to see if anyone comes after you? That’s probably it. After you went and made a scene, someone could get suspicious. They might want to come and see what the two of you are up to out here. Maybe someone’s even realized that Argent Lewis was never supposed to be there at all.
“I am,” you say, and make yourself believe it. You do feel better. “Let us go back in. I am ready this time.”
“Nah,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, almost impossibly casual. “Ain’t really feeling it. Let’s head home, huh? Get some rest and a shower. That base ain’t going nowhere.”
“But we need to,” you say. Even to your ears it sounds weak, a sentence both of you know you can’t honor. You let the great Nathaniel Morgan guide you back to the hover-cycle, and the wind of the drive back finally rouses you fully, sends chills through you in your soaked clothing, and stirs the shame that was only waiting to pounce.
You failed. You made the great Nathaniel Morgan fail, too, and could easily have gotten him killed, just like Mightyena said. You really are broken; you really are weak.
It’s okay to cry a little now, while you’re in the side-car with your helmet visor down, tears invisible and inaudible over the wind. You’re safe in knowing the great Nathaniel Morgan won’t notice. Imagine if he saw you crying over something like this.
Like you needed to get even worse. Even more useless and pathetic. What even comes next, after this? It’s impossible to think that you’ll somehow sink lower than this. But you will, won’t you? You’ll come up with some way to become an even bigger disappointment. You’re special, after all. Normal failure simply wouldn’t do.
Back in bed. Again. All Kid ever does these days is lie around, resting, or trying to. After nothing. How could a door have scared it like that? It was stupid. So stupid. Kid should have done better.
It could have. It knows how. If it made its mind the right way nothing at all would have registered when the great Nathaniel Morgan put in his code. But Kid’s scared, isn’t it? Scared of itself and what it might do.
No. Not scared. It needed to be able to act human. It wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone, but if it needed to, it had to be ready to not completely screw it up. Kid couldn’t have been anyone but who it was.
It will just have to get over its fear. The base wasn’t that scary. Now, in the quiet and the late-afternoon shadows, Kid can see how silly it was to be afraid at all. That wasn’t even the same base! Kid knew that!
That’s what Kid has to remember. Next time, because there will be a next time, it’ll be prepared. It’ll make it through okay. It can do this. It knows it can.
It has to. There’s no other way to save Mew.
The great Nathaniel Morgan comes to see Kid eventually. He must have gone back to the base for a while, probably to smooth things over after Kid’s outburst. It imagines him making up lies to explain somebody who never should have been there having some kind of fit. A story to explain missing armor.
“So that didn’t go so hot,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, leaning against the doorframe. He seems oddly relaxed about Kid attacking him and ruining his plan.
“I messed it up,” Kid says. “It should have been okay. Everything was going fine. But I could not… I could not…”
“Ain’t your fault, Kid. I should have turned it all around as soon as we got off that elevator. I could tell you were having a tough time.”
“So what?” Kid grips the covers tight, knotting them up in an angry fist. “I should not have had a tough time. Everything was fine. I was scared for no reason. Next time I will not be. I know what I need to watch out for now. I am ready. We should go again tomorrow.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan takes a deep breath. “Kid. I don’t think there should be a next time. I think you ought to sit this one out. What I’ll do is–”
“No!” Kid sits up, dragging the sheets around it in a deathgrip. “No! I am going with you! I have to!”
“It’s okay, Kid. I got this one. Let me just–”
“I am going! I am going!” Tears gather in the corners of Kid’s eyes. “You cannot stop me! I am going with you!”
The great Nathaniel Morgan sighs. He regards Kid with a solemnity that only makes it feels worse. He looks like he feels bad for Kid. He shouldn’t. Kid should be better than that. “You’re right, I can’t stop you if you really want to come along. But I think it would be better for you to stay behind.”
“No, no, no, no,” Kid mutters, really crying now, knotted up inside because it knows he’s right.
“Hey. Shhh. It’s okay.”
A violent impulse surges through Kid, and it squeezes the covers like they’re the great Nathaniel Morgan’s neck. How dare he condescend to it like this? As though it needs soothing. As though he should ever be the one to comfort Kid. Pathetic human. Weak human. Stupid human.
“It is not okay,” Kid chokes out. “I am not weak. I can help.” The same thing it’s been saying for weeks. The same thing it completely failed to demonstrate today.
“I know you ain’t weak,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Shit, you’re fucking scary. That hasn’t changed. All I’m saying is, no need to give yourself a hernia over all this. If Mew’s down there like I think, I can go get her with the team. Bring her out to you. I don’t see why you need to be down there at all, you know? Obviously you’re strong, it’s always good to have backup. But I think we can handle it. So you can just hang out and enjoy the show, huh? Ain’t a bad deal.”
He’s right. Kid knows he’s right. “I want to go,” it says. “I am supposed to. Saving Mew is my job.”
“You’ll save her. I just figure you don’t gotta be there for every single little part, you know?”
Every single little part. Like this, this last, actually finding Mew and taking her out of that place, is a little thing. Like it isn’t the most important part of all.
Maybe the great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t need Kid. But how shameful is that, that Kid should need someone else, someone so weak, to do something it manifestly cannot? “Please,” it says miserably. “Please take me with you.”
“I know you really want to go, Kid. But I think it’s better for me and the team to handle this on our own.”
Kid closes its eyes, tired beyond belief. “Can I come in?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks after a long silence.
Kid wants him to. It wants him to sit with it and tell it everything will be all right. At least there would be someone else in the room with it besides its sadness and its failure.
But that would be even worse, wouldn’t it? To be so weak, and so distressed by that weakness, that it needs to turn to some human for comfort. Kid shakes its head, and then of course the great Nathaniel Morgan stays where he is.
“Let’s just leave it there for now, okay?” The great Nathaniel Morgan says. “I’m gonna get grub. Anything sound good to you?”
Of course not. Kid tries to even think of the name of a food and can’t come up with anything. It shakes its head. “All right. I’m getting pizza, then. From a decent place. I’m sick of frozen shit. We can talk at dinner, right?”
He turns away, and suddenly Kid needs to tell him. It needs to make him understand. “It was the door. I was afraid of the door.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan pauses. “Huh?”
“The door. That was why I… acted like I did. I got scared when it opened.” Kid takes a long, shaky breath. “It was like the door in the lab. When it opened, the scientists would come in to get me. They would take me away to… do things.”
“Shit,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says after a long moment. “Sorry, Kid. I had no idea.”
“It was just a door.”
“I guess, yeah. But it sounds like it reminded you of some real fucked-up shit.”
“It was just a door!” Kid says, louder. “There was nothing scary about it! I messed everything up, and it was stupid. It was not even for anything real.”
“I mean, it sounds like it was real for you,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Kid. There ain’t no reason you should have to go near Cipher ever again. Let me handle it. For real. You can still help, but it don’t gotta be for this part.”
He’s being so nice. He doesn’t think of Kid as a threat anymore. He’s afraid of hurting it feelings. It’s all so wrong that Kid would scream if it weren’t so exhausted.
“I want to go with you,” it says hopelessly.
“I know you do. But let’s worry about that later, all right? Just relax for now.”
Kid can’t argue, but neither can it ignore the dread that washes over it as the great Nathaniel Morgan leaves. He’s going to go alone. Kid’s too weak to help him anymore, and he knows it for sure now. After everything, Kid won’t be able to rescue Mew, and it doesn’t know if the great Nathaniel Morgan can manage it by himself, either. Absol saw the future. She knows Kid is needed. But now it can’t. It can’t even walk through Cipher’s base. It can’t even go through a door.
Even thinking of the door makes the muscles in Kid’s stomach knot tight. It’s lying here in bed, far, far away, and the door’s still in its head. It probably always will be. Maybe Cipher didn’t make Kid shadow, but they broke it all the same.
Kid presses its face into the pillow. It wishes it could sleep and let all this be worry for later, but it doesn’t know whether it’s ever going to sleep again.
It can’t give up. It has to find a way to save Mew.
Sluggish tears force themselves out from under Kid’s closed eyelids, hot and stinging and hateful. This is what it’s reduced to. Hoping some human can find a way to solve all its problems.
Kid lies awhile brooding on its worthlessness. It hears the great Nathaniel Morgan leave, then return. Hears the sound of pokéballs releasing, and now, distantly, Mightyena’s barks and Raticate’s squeaky replies. The huge grinding noise that drowns the others out. Steelix is there, too.
“Kid?” The great Nathaniel Morgan’s voice rings down the hall, and Kid grinds its face harder into the pillow. It wishes it could run out there and eat pizza with the great Nathaniel Morgan’s pokémon and be happy. It feels like on top of everything else, it’s forgotten how to have fun. That shouldn’t sting more than not being able to save Mew, but it does.
Kid doesn’t respond when the great Nathaniel Morgan calls again. He’ll show up at Kid’s room again later to offer it pizza there if it wants. He’ll humor Kid. Because he pities it. A human pitying Kid, for being so weak. Sometimes Kid thinks it understands how Mewtwo feels, a little.
The far-off sounds grow even more distant. Everybody probably went outside so Steelix could be included. His low, belling tones are easy to hear, even so far away.
Kid is lucky to have Steelix around. Otherwise it would spend so much time alone, with nothing but its horrible memories to keep it company.
The great Nathaniel Morgan will take Steelix away when he goes to find Mew for real. Unlike Kid, the great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t have to find any excuse for him to be down in the base; he can just put him in his pokéball and go. Steelix’s pokéball was on the great Nathaniel Morgan’s belt today, even. A secret weapon, for when stealth doesn’t matter anymore. And when the great Nathaniel Morgan takes him, Kid really will be alone.
Steelix. What is it about Steelix? Kid frowns, feeling the faint rumbles of Steelix’s words coming up through the floor. Maybe Kid will go talk to him tomorrow, or just ask to hear one of his stories.
It picks at the blanket next to it, lost in thought. Something bothering it. What about Steelix? What about–oh.
Kid sits up. Stands up. Its heart races with the giddy surety of a brilliant idea. It crosses to the door.
But no. Backs away again. It needs to go far. Can’t just leave the house, will need to leave the desert entirely.
How long has it been since Kid’s been out in Orre alone? It feels like a lifetime. It feels like it can never be sure of itself again. But it knows, now. It knows how it can fix everything. It has to do this no matter how much it might feel it can’t.
Kid takes a long, steadying breath. Then a second, just to be sure. Then it closes its eyes, and a moment later is gone, holding Phenac City fixed in its mind’s eye, where the answer to all its problems lies.