章 53: The Hoenn Incident Aftermath

"Woah… It looks like a hurricane went through here." That idle comment makes me look up from my little crystal circuit to find Courtney standing in the doorway with a slightly awed expression.

"Err, yeah," I mutter, looking around. "Do you need something?" I ask, brain slightly foggy. I stifle a yawn which she absolutely catches.

She narrows her eyes. "I was going to talk about the café, but I need to ask. Did you get any sleep this morning?"

I blink, feeling my eyelids slightly out of sync. "Maybe."

Rolling her eyes, she invites herself to sit on my bed with me. Her eyes go to the arms sprouting out of my back, then to the various projects around the room they're working on.

Smirking, she says, "I don't think I can convince you to sleep, so why don't you tell me why your room looks like a closet where a Garbodor threw up."

I raise an eyebrow at her for that mental image, but I continue on regardless. I point over at Alex reading some documentation I made for the new voice box. "I overengineered a problem. I was using Fourier transforms to encode commands for her to relay. Since I'm in possession of extremely powerful electronic components now and I have my equipment base fused to me, I redesigned the whole mechanism to translate the action in my head into a static voice that has shifted the frequency well above human hearing limits but not her limit."

"Why?" She cutely tilts her head as she asks that.

Without blinking, I continue, "If my opponent doesn't know what I'm doing, then they can't prepare to defend for it. The ability for pokémon to communicate with each other without humans knowing is really powerful."

She points to Gwen sleeping on my lap. "Isn't she an alpha? I remember someone telling me that they can command pokémon in battle just like a trainer can, and she's psychic which means she can read your mind."

I purse my lips. "…Be quiet. Technically, she's not mature enough for that yet. I'll let her battle as a pokémon before she battles as a trainer."

She nods. "I can understand that. What I don't understand is why your Ferroseed is sitting in a water bath with two electrodes sticking out of the tub."

I hold up an unrefined crystal. "These crystals are magic. They're the perfect circuit component. The only hard part is that they grew only in a specific cave…until now!"

Jumping up, I run over to Hazel, causing her to peek her eyes open for a split second before returning to her nap. "Ferroseeds have a unique trait of consuming minerals, metals, elements, and crystals. However, if they receive too many…nutrients from one mineral, they expel other minerals in their system as these seeds." I point to the spikes on Hazel. "These seeds, through an extensive process, can be grown into new minerals."

Taking a breath, much to Courtney's exasperation, I gesture to the bin. "This bath is filled with the purest distilled water I could get with Sycamore's name. Since pure water is an insulator, it uses a ton of electricity to actually get the crystal seeds to grow on Hazel. Another neat trick that she can do, is mix the minerals with the crystals to create varients."

Mentally, I pull the file stored in the arms with my notes. "Since she can mix the amounts herself, I don't really focus on the amounts, and, as long as I meet a minimum threshold, adding more of an additive doesn't change much. The only important thing is the combinations. Potassium chloride salts, I found, create extremely pure crystals. Pure table salt, i.e. sodium chloride without all the extra stuff companies add, actually reduces the capacitance of a crystal by 50% which has some uses since it decreases charge and discharge time."

I shake my head, running over to my desk where I have several other crystal circuits. "These crystals have tons of useful properties, such as storing a ton of energy. That means I have created this!" I held up a simple circuit to Courtney's face, judging her reaction.

She looks over it, slightly frowning. Shit… "I recognize some parts, like the rudimentary ROM chip, but what is…everything else?"

I blink, slightly surprised that she recognized that of everything on the circuit. "Well, it's the physical manifestation of a computer virus, I would say. The main inspiration is that a large computer for a database would have the encryption keys somewhere on it, and, eventually, the files for those keys would be opened, and this circuit basically waits for that and records the files while they're unlocked."

She looks up at me, face…purposefully blank. "You're going to plug that into their computer and leave it there."

I nod, clarity returning to my addled mind. "Yes, but enough about my inventions," I say, ignoring my first prototype arm on the table. "You were pretty frazzled last night- I mean, this morning when we left the café."

She looks around awkwardly. Her eyes move as they refuse to meet mine. "What we saw down there…it reminded me of what I did…or…what I almost did."

I nod slightly. "Yes… I did some research into that a while back… I found my knowledge on it…lacking. Who was it that coined that manifesto you guys sent to the police force and the Pokémon League?"

"…Maxie wrote it. He said it would be best if it were to come directly from him." She's looking down now. Her thumb is rubbing the side of her hand…almost like a motion one makes when washing their hands. "I guess it got him in the most trouble in the end."

I stare down at the girl who seems to switch her personality on a dime. Sometimes she's flirty, playful, and confident. Sometimes she's cold, calculated…unfeeling. Now, she's sad and filled with regret. The only question is, given her background, which one is the real her?

Which one of these faces was responsible for helping awaken a legendary in order to create more land…which is a plan I find several faults with, and almost end the world? The same could be said for any of the other grunts or executives. I've looked at all of them, or, at least, what digital files I could find that weren't completely redacted. Tabitha, Maxie, Archie, Matt, Shelly, and…Courtney each had their lives pulled apart when they were arrested.

Team Magma was an environmental group that was extremely pro-human development, going out of their way to destroy the ecosystem to expand industries. Team Aqua was their counterpart in destroying human cities and towns for the support of pokémon living in the wild.

Magma awoke Groudon to create land. Aqua awoke Kyogre to create water. It…ended well, I suppose, but not for the team members.

Most of their assets were either frozen or acquired. Maxie and Archie's fates are largely redacted, but it seems they both control their respective teams from a distance now. The teams themselves essentially got put under the executive's management, but now including heavy scrutiny from governing bodies. Team Magma now takes over being game wardens for the rangers, and Team Aqua became fishing wardens. They still have other actual conservation projects as well, benefiting both humans and pokémon, but those are the main things nowadays.

No… I'm looking at this wrong. These…faces, I called them, aren't just unique to her. Everyone has them; each depicting a different facet of personality to others in a situation. It's just that all of them aligned for her to make a bad choice.

"What happened after your…arrest?"

She chuckles. "Well, just about everyone argued for us executives to be executed or at least life in prison. The grunts would've just received extensive jail time. We were saved by a member of the international police—I can't remember his name—and he essentially talked the courts down to lifetime community service."

Her weak smile falters again. "We're scrutinized extensively. No member of Team Magma or Team Aqua can buy paperclips without filing expense reports with the local region's finance office. Maxie got annoyed with the slow pace of bureaucracy, so he took to a self-sufficient farming life."

"Wait," I say, eyes narrowing. "How have you been spending money on…anything so far?"

"I submitted a list of things I needed, informing them that I was going on a pokémon journey with you. I expected to be denied and forced to find another way to buy things, but my claim got approved within a day."

I raise a brow. "That's lucky." Wait, I feel like we've gotten off topic. "So, how does any of that relate to what we found?"

She looks at her hands again. "The laboratories. The equipment. The…crime. It all just reminds me of what I did under Team Magma. I just feel…I fear that if we get involved with this, I might get indicted again. Community service might not be an option anymore."

I…don't know how to help this. If anything, I'm a criminal too with how much shady stuff I do. I really think there's only one thing I can do…

I scoot forward until I'm in front of Courtney, and I wrap my arms around her, giving her the best hug I can with one and a half arms.

It's only a minute later when she reciprocates.