Chương 54: Buying Things with Other People's Money

It has been exactly two days since my make out session with Courtney. It has also been exactly 1 day and 23 hours since I snuck into the underground lab to plant my device. I know it was dangerous to go there during the day, but I was lucky to find that they had some comically large air vents for me to sneak through to get in.

The fat scientist that Courtney and I almost ran into goes by the name Xerosic. Whether that is a nickname or his birthname, I don't know. All I do know is that I feel sympathy for him in that regard. My middle name is roquefort which is a type of cheese.

He's extremely prolific at recording data which means that I've gotten access to a large number of their files. Do I actually understand them? No. Will I hope to understand them? Yes. Will I actually understand them? By my estimation, next week. I have a particular interest in their genetic research since, the last few times scientists tried that, the experiments usually didn't end well. However, before I could even attempt to begin to understand human or pokémon genomes, I did take a look at their financial records.

They spend quite a chunk of money. They have a habit of…buying pokémon from legal breeders, illegal breeders, and families that just can't afford to keep pokémon around. They're experimenting on them somehow, but, again, I don't really understand it.

They spend enough money at a frequent enough pace I think they wouldn't notice if a chunk suddenly…went missing.

So, I'll be using that to my advantage today.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to uncover their master plan. By Courtney's estimation, she's assuming world domination, destruction, or a combination of the two. For various reasons, I'm inclined to believe her. That girl in question said that she was going to spend the day contacting people she knows—whatever that means—and annoying the employees at the café.

My plans are to head back to that one small town where I lost my arm, and my cool at Team Rocket and Clemont, and make a small purchase.

———————————————————————————————————————

"Are you sure this won't be too hard on you?" The tired, but worried, woman asks.

"Not at all," I reply, happily sending money from Lysandre's eighteenth hidden account to her. "I've become friends with a good portion of my team and acquaintances at least. I'm completely capable of handing large numbers of pokémon."

After confirming the money, the woman leaves for a second, leaving me alone in the parlor. It's a quant little home here, isn't it? I wouldn't mind having a cabin or something out in the woods…though… I do like the thought of something more grandiose than that.

She comes back with a small tray that's made to hold a dozen pokéballs, but only holds six. Notably, four balls are displaying the red dot which means that the registered person has gone over their allowed six pokémon per team limit. That state is really only enforced for battling, so for domestics, it's fine.

Normally, if two trainers are to officially trade pokémon, they must use a machine to do it, but that's only really used nowadays for long-distance trades, or for pokémon that evolve when exposed to the energies of trade networks. People can just trade pokéballs that have the pokémon in them. There are a few caveats with this as well. With the sad reality that some trainers will catch a pokémon only to abandon it later, the pokéball with the corresponding biometric data will reset if the pokémon is far enough away and has been out of the pokéball long enough.

For example, Ash's Pikachu. I never see it in its pokéball, but I'd assume it's still under the state of caught since it's around Ash most of the time. However, if Team Rocket were to successfully escape after kidnapping Pikachu for long enough, they could theoretically catch Pikachu themselves. The success of that, however, depends on the strength of the ball and the state of the pokémon which, in Pikachu's case, would be irate.

The woman leans in close to the tray, whispering, "We all knew this day would come. I hope you're all ready for a new life. I'm sorry I couldn't take care of all of you." Shakily, she hands me the tray. With each pokéball, I hold down the button, registering it to my biometric data. Since my modified pokéballs work on their own system, six balls display a normal white button while the remaining two stay red.

If the woman notices this, she doesn't comment. "Thank you," I say, lowering my head slightly. "I'll make sure to take great care of them."

She nods back, leaving the parlor before the waterworks can break. I already noticed a single tear, and I think she wants to save face.

I take this opportunity to excuse myself to nobody and leave.

———————————————————————————————————————

As I sit on my bed, surrounded by a cloud of fluffy fur, Courtney stares at me with a bemused expression.

"What are you smiling about?" I ask, still looking down at the last pokéball I need to modify. The many Eevees fell asleep on me after exploring my room and tuckering themselves out. I'll need to name each of them…and probably get them collars or something to help differentiate them.

"Just saving this image to my memory." I hear a chair creak, notifying me that she's taken the pleasure in sitting herself down at my desk. "You have quite the collection of pokémon now." Looking up, I see her drop some food pellets in the tank I made for Primrose.

"Yeah," I mutter. "It'll probably continue to grow."

She shrugs. "It's not a bad thing. At least it means you have a higher chance to protect yourself and avoid…further injuries."

My hand freezes as my gaze floats to my other arm. I should continue working on that prototype arm. My crystal advancements should help yield some new results.

"By the way," she mutters, fingers tapping across the various books on my desk. "What are you doing?"

"Well, on the earlier subject of memory, I'm modifying the ROM chip in these pokéballs to allow me to go above the six pokémon per team limit."

"Oh, so that's what you've been doing…" She mutters. "Wait, is that why you only have like two empty pokéballs in your bag? Is it really that much effort to modify them?"

My eyebrows scrunch up. "You went through my bag?"

She waves me off. "Yeah, yeah. I was looking for some snacks. You need to eat more than just ranger rations. Anyway, answer the question."

I roll my eyes, ready to answer her questions. "Technically, yes? The pokéball is a fairly simple invention. I could probably build one out of wood and apricots. All of the extra circuitry serves as a catch for various functions because, fun fact, Silph Co. don't like it when people jailbreak their tech."

Using an arm, it reaches to the foot of my bed where my bag lays on the ground and pulls out an empty pokéball. "These things have so many backup systems, that the ROM is more of an EEPROM. If I accidentally short the memory of a pokéball that already has a pokémon registered, it clears, and I have to catch the pokémon again. If I try to catch a pokémon and it fails, the ROM gets reset and I have to break it again. I'd have to worry less if I had a pokéball that had a perfect catch rate. I doubt they exist, but I wouldn't really know. Silph Co. uses paper for all of their important documents, and I can't hack that."

She starts spinning around in my chair. "Well, they do exist."

My hand stops, tweezers that hold a wire hovering over the final connection for reprogramming. "What?"

"Yeah, they're called Master Balls. They're extraordinarily expensive in materials and production. They practically have to be made by hand with a team of craftsmen."

I insert the wire, then put down the tweezers and ball with the move being large enough to wake an Eevee. I give her a silent apology which she accepts and returns to her slumber. "How do you know this?"

She shrugs. "Team Magma raided a factory once. In fact, they never actually design a Master Ball to catch pokémon even if it's the best pokéball. Whenever a factory is built in a region, they dedicate the factory with a Master Ball. Those things are like a certificate. The only way they can give one away and request a new one from their headquarters is if a trainer helps save a factory that's under attack."

I grin. "So, what I'm hearing is that we should go visit a pokéball factory and steal their Master Ball, so that I can commit patent theft and make my own."

She stares at me. "I'm pretty sure I said exactly none of those words."

"Yeah, but you were implying it. The only other option would be a ticket to Kanto and steal the blueprints from the HQ itself."

She stares at me, mouth slightly agape. "I think… As someone who's been consistently on the wrong side of the law, my advice would be to avoid doing anything remotely close to that."

I raise an eyebrow. "You seem to have no problem with me modifying pokéballs and hacking computers."

She scrunches up onto my chair, hiding in her knees as she puts her feet up on my chair. "Yeah, but the pokéball thing isn't hurting anyone, and you're hacking people that probably have bad intentions."

Probably being the operative keyword there. I don't think she's aware of my other illegal computer activities… I'll keep her in the dark on that for now. "I'll just mark it on the to-do list as a solid maybe."

She rises up, slightly affronted. "How about a solid no?"

I give her a smirk. "I think we'll just have to have a solid agree-to-disagree. What do you think?"

Her flat, slightly disappointed, expression tells me that I've won.