"No, no, no, no, no!"
A young boy makes a mad dash down Vermillion City's main street. His tiny legs struggle to carry him, but he pushes on.
This boy is Ray, and he just turned eleven. As per tradition, he is about to get his first Pokémon from the local professor. But this was even better than the usual, as the famous Professor Oak himself was travelling around Kanto to give this new generation their first Pokémon. What an opportunity!
Down the road, Ray sees a crowd of children piled up outside the local Pokémon Center. As his legs start to wobble, a smile forms on his lips. With tears in his eyes, he slows to a stop. He was here. He made it!
He breathed out a sigh and made his way through the crowd; it's not like there was a line or anything, so he wasn't really skipping. Everyone here would get their Pokémon, it shouldn't have mattered when. In fact, some kids already had their Pokémon! In fact, a lot of kids had their Pokémon. Almost everyone there had their…
Wait a minute…
His heart skipped a beat. No, no, no, no, no! Everywhere he looked, another kid was playing with their Bulbasaur, or hugging their Squirtle, or patting their Charmander on the head (away from the flame), or just celebrating in general with their parents or friends. Many of the kids were familiar; Ray tried not to meet their glances. He had eyes for one person, and he needed to find that person now.
Lucky for him, then, that he was still in front of the counter, putting his equipment away oh no.
"P-Professor Oak?"
The old man looked up from his equipment to share a warm smile. His voice had a slight croak to it, but the energy with which he spoke still masked his age.
"Oh, hello there! Happy with your new friend? How is my old Pokémon?"
"I… I don't have one, sir," Ray said.
"Oh, I'm sure it's fine, my boy," Oak almost brushing him off.
"But… but what if you're out?"
"No worries, no worries. Just let the nurse know the number you received after you signed up."
Another skip of his heart.
"S-sign up?"
Oak stops what he's doing and straightens himself out. "Ah. I see." He looked over Ray, this child he didn't even know, and he inhaled deeply. "What's your name, son?"
"Ray." Ray lowered his eyes; he could feel friends, acquaintances, people he knew and would never meet all looking at him. He could almost hear their whispers.
"Well, Ray. For these events, you need to sign up. We have a website, or an app, and you or your parents would need to… well. I suppose you don't want to hear this right now."
Ray tried to stifle a sniffle. He failed. Oak patted him on the shoulder to try and comfort him.
"Would you… could you… could you check?" He was desperate. Professor Oak gives a half-hearted smile to reassure Ray that not all was lost.
"Of course. Nurse Joy?" He calls the nurse from behind the desk.
"Yes, professor?"
"Would you happen to know if there is any Pokémon left? Err, Ray, do you have a preference."
Ray shook his head. Oak nodded for the nurse to check, stopping her before she could protest. She leaves for a few moments, but only a few.
"We would have saved one for you, but I'm afraid—" she begins when she returns.
The boy shudders out a cold breath, his body still aching, his dreams freshly shattered.
"I'm sorry," is all Oak says.
All was lost.
Nothing went the way he thought it would. He didn't wake up on time, and even if he did it wouldn't have mattered. There was a whole whole thing online that he never realized he needed to do he could have chosen a Pokémon online but no he was the big dumb loser with no Pokémon now, whyyyyy?
Professor Oak promised to come back in a few weeks – a couple months, tops – but Ray wanted his Pokémon and he wanted it now. He threw his shoes on the floor – it wasn't that long ago since he put them on in the first place. He slumped onto the couch in dismay; was there literally nothing he could do?
A short dinging noise startled him out of his sadness, and he looked up to see the source of the noise: the family computer. Ray blinked, a thought coming to him. He practically leapt over to the computer to turn it on. Even if it couldn't, or even if it wouldn't matter… he had to prove he could do it. He would go onto the website, see what it was like to sign up.
But he was so so so very late, and they hadn't begun sign-ups for the next go around. The sign-up page was closed. He threw his head into his hands, trying not to cry.
Dammit.
Well, no use brooding! There's other things to use a computer for, like checking emails. Or, since nobody else is home, maybe some Solitaire. Or social media, or Wikipedia, or…
You knew it was going to be porn.
Or at least, he tries to look up porn. An eleven-year-old can only get so far, you might think, but no. They're smarter than you give them credit for. No, he doesn't stop until one of the advertisements winks at him. At first, Ray thinks nothing of it, until the ad's slogan starts to move its letters around to say "Hello, Ray."
Ray tries to jerk up from the chair but instead of standing up, he knocks the chair back with himself still on it. His head hits the floor behind him hard. After a few moments of recovering, he tries to understand what he just saw. His mind's messing with him, right? He breathes deeply and fixes the chair. Maybe it's not his mind. Aren't social media websites all connected with everything nowadays? Yeah, that must be it. He'll just ignore it. He tries to laugh off the shock and looks back at the ad. It doesn't say anything about his name anymore.
Instead, it asks "Are you alright? That was a nasty fall."
Well! That was enough internet for today! In fact, that was enough of the computer in general, for a long time. He smashed the power button until the screen went black and the modem stopped buzzing. He paced around the room a few times before deciding to just watch TV until his mind went numb and he forgot about it.
As he threw himself on the couch, he thought to himself about the possibilities. It must have been some kind of hacker, he guessed. But how could they even see him? It's a desktop computer, and they don't have a webcam or a microphone. What would they even want from someone like him?
Nope, nope! Time for mindless, mind-numbing something-or-other on the television. Either Disney or Cartoon Network, whichever has Digimon Dawn and Dusk here in Kanto. Nothing like some mindless cartoons where the protagonists never age or grow past a season! Ah, that's more like it. Time to obsess over this obviously-meta-placeholder and complain over all its perceived faults… or something.
After a few hours of watching television and arguing internally, he hears his mom come home from work. She kissed his forehead and went to turn on the computer. As she began to put her stuff away, she called out, "Ray, how was your day? Did you get your Pokémon?"
A deep feeling of sadness suddenly filled his heart. There was no way to make it leave.
"No."
Silence as she walked into the family room. She pondered what to say before sitting down.
"I'm sorry, Ray. Maybe next time, huh?"
"Yeah…" was all he could muster.
She clicked the mouse a few times, signifying the conversation was over. At least, for a few seconds.
"Ray? Did you get on the computer today?"
Ray blinked. "I did for a little bit, but really only to look into the sign-ups I missed."
"Uh huh…?"
"I shut it off like right after."
She spun in her swivelly chair to face him. "Well, next time… if you're going to look up dirty websites… at least delete the pages from the history. Never know who's going to get on the computer."
Ray felt a deep shame as his face went hot and red. He bolted upright and stood up.
"Oh, uh. Okay. Sorry."
His mother brushed his apology off. "There's no words for this kind of thing, so no worries. Never happened. But actually, maybe just stay off those entirely, huh? You never know what kind of viruses are on those websites."
He made an empty smile then excused himself to his room. His mom watched after him, then shook her head, muttering something about boys being boys as she turned back to the computer.
The next day started off quieter, as it was just a normal summer day. As such, Ray got bored quick. There was no TV show that was on, no book he wanted to read because um, eww? And all the songs on his phone were just kind of… there.
He wants his dang Pokémon.
He quickly jumps on the computer again to look up Pokémon stuff to distract him. Pictures on Facebook of all the starter Pokémon the other kids got start to give him a funny feeling, a mixture of happiness for other people… and bitterness.
He almost clicks off to Google when he thought he felt someone watching him. Watching him, as in, through the computer.
Might have something to do with the literal eyes looking at him from the screen, out of the blue. Wait, does that make it a blue screen or…
"Holy hell!" Ray crashes to the floor in surprise, his head aching as the chair is knocked over. Cursing under his breath, he reaches for his head. A small shock jolts through his nerves as his fingers softly touched the newly formed bump on the back of his noggin. He winces in pain. He looks back to the computer with one eye.
Just Google. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
He steadies himself to his feet and decides to stop playing on the computer for a while. He clicks the button that switches the screen off and decides to go lay down and rest his poor head in his room. I mean, he knew he didn't have a concussion, so…
"RAY WHATEVERYOURLASTNAMEIS! GET OUT HERE, NOW!"
Ray jumps awake, lying in his own bed. He fell asleep faster than he thought, and for longer. More importantly, he hadn't heard his mom that mad in a long time; even when angry, she'd call him by his whole name, but here she didn't even seem to process it. He tries to get out of bed as fast as he can so as not to further endure his mother's wrath.
"I told you not to get on those websites, Ray. Now we've got a virus."
Wait, what websites? His brain struggled to comprehend what she was implying.
"Wait, what websites?" he asks as he checks the screen at the computer screen for any obvious changes. His mom shoos him away from the desktop.
"You know exactly what websites."
He searched through all the websites he visited that day. What could she mean? Facebook, maybe? Wasn't there a thing about them stealing information or something? His mom huffs out an exasperated sigh.
"Does 'Erin Esurance' ring a bell?"
"N-no?"
"Or maybe 'Alexa,' then?"
"Isn't… isn't that the Amazon voicey app?"
"I don't know, Ray, but I warned you yesterday about this, didn't I? Not to look up porn?"
Porn? He didn't look up porn at all today!
"Porn? I didn't look up porn at all today!"
"It's right there in the history, Ray."
Wait, seriously, how do you look for porn of Alexa, it's a voice.
"Anyway, you're grounded from the computer, and you're grounded longer for lying."
"I… I didn't!"
His mother just crosses her arms and glares at him. He knows better than to put up a fight, even if he was innocent. Things usually turned out okay when he was innocent, though. The truth would set him free. At least he already planned on not getting on the computer. But seriously, it's a voice, there's no body, it wouldn't be Alexa, it would be an original character, how can there be porn of her? Maybe written porn, but those websites obviously don't put viruses on computers. Speaking of which…
"What kind of virus is it, anyway?" At this inquiry, his mother snaps.
"Does it matter? It's a virus, and it's moving everything around. We're going to have to reset the computer this weekend. Now, go to your room."
Ray stares at the computer before he stomps away to his room. He swears he saw a pair of eyes wink at him as he turned away from the screen.
He would play it safe for an entire day before he snuck back on the computer. During the summertime, it sometimes felt like the computer was all he had. But he could be patient. He could wait. He would outlast his mom, or maybe she would forget when he was being good the rest of the time and whoops never mind. It's not even noon before Ray goes to the computer desk. He thinks to himself that he'll just use the incognito tabs.
But he doesn't turn on the computer. It does that all by itself. Ray holds his breath, trying not to be freaked out by the spies or government or whoever was controlling his computer. It certainly wasn't a virus.
"Look," he tells the computer screen, "I'm just a kid. I don't know what you want from me, but I'm not doing anything anyone else is doing." Wait, scratch that. Downloading music is actually illegal. "Actually, I'm much better then all those other…" His mind goes to the various criminal organizations on TV. "And I'm not, like, Team Galactic or Plasma or Rocket. I don't worship these weirdos. I'm," he waves his arms indicating himself as a sort of punctuation, "just me."
Silence. Maybe it was all his imagination. Then the computer did something he didn't expect it to; it cooed. Or, the software and wiring made a sound that tried to emulate a cooing noise. He looked from the computer to the screen and saw a pair of eyes looking at him.
"You're… you're actually alive?" Ray asks. The computer whirred its disc drive into what had to have been an affirmative answer. He sits back in his chair, dumbfounded. This was it. He finally lost it. The stress of not having a Pokémon destroyed him, inside and out.
"I can't believe I'm risking getting in trouble for a figment of my imagination," he mutters under his breath. "I'm… I've gotta get off the computer, man," he tells himself. He starts to get up when the desktop moans loudly to get his attention. He sighs.
"I don't understand what you want from me?"
The computer buzzed for a few seconds. Suddenly, the browser opened and tabs upon tabs started to play random nonsense. Weird, positive vibe things, but from things he'd never even heard of. Homestuck? Furries? Bronies? The computer seemed to have a special interest in some blue-haired girl called a Vocaloid. Also, way too many cat videos. Like, dang dude. Even over the cacophony of YouTube likes, comments, and subscribes, Ray could hear the computer struggle as it tried to play every single thing it brought up at the same time.
"What even?!" Ray shouted. "Enough, turn it off! I don't want you to break, you've already got a damn virus!"
The computer screen goes blue, and his heart skips a beat. He slams the power button and holds it until the computer is forced to shut down. Ray breathes heavily, feeling tears well up. Well! He got in trouble this much! Might as well go all the way, right?
Before he can call his mom (or maybe, maybe don't do that Ray, she doesn't need to know, you're already in trouble, just blame the virus!), the computer and screen both turn back on as though nothing had happened. Ray blinks.
"What in the world are you?" He shakes his head, all the emotions coming back to him. "Why did you do that? Why did you try and break yourself?! I'm already in trouble, don't make it worse!"
The computer drive whimpers. An image of a Hallmark card fills the screen, and suddenly Ray understood.
"You're trying to apologize for getting me in trouble." The computer whirred an affirmative. "Huh."
Ray sat there in silence, looking at the computer screen, the screen (or whatever those eyes were?) looking back at him, both trying to comprehend the situation. Ray couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it was… but also how kind of awesome it was! He stretched his arms and set himself in a proper interneting position.
"Fine, fine, come on, you're forgiven. At least give me some quality memes, then. One at a time, though."
With a loud chirp, the screen went to Google Images, first showing off none pizza with left beef before moving on to various Doge memes until they settled on a switching back-and-forth from Denny's blog and Jaden Smith's twitter. It sure was something, and for the first time in what felt like forever to someone his age and dramatic tendencies, Ray felt content.
It was like this for the next few days. Ray would sneak on the computer when his mom was at work, and his not-virus pal inside the computer would help provide some laughter, or news, or just shoot the shit. Ray had a lot of things he liked to surf the web, and whatever was in the computer just seemed satisfied watching or reading along with him.
"You're not really part of the computer, are you?" Ray would ask it as he microwaved pizza rolls for lunch one day. "Or even the internet?" The terminal chimed high and low, insinuating that it didn't quite know. Ray rested his elbow on the table and cupped his chin, pondering the creature.
"So, what are you? We've determined that you're alive. Can you leave the computer?"
There was a moment of brevity, and then a loud buzzing noise erupted from the computer. What seemed like bolts of electricity flew from the PC and arced toward the microwave. After a shocking uproar, the quiet that followed was even more deafening. What just happened?
"Hey, buddy?" He tapped the computer; it seemed like it fried. Oh no.
He was startled when he heard the microwave ding, and a familiar computerized chirp. He leapt from his seat and jolted to the kitchen.
"Dude, are you in the microwave?" The microwave door flew open, revealing burnt pizza rolls. He pulled out the plate, nearly dropping it from the sheer heat of the metal. Seriously?! Well, he wasn't that hungry anyway, and at least his friend was okay!
"Can you make it back to the computer?" he asked tentatively. Of course, he may have guessed the answer, or more accurately hoped, but that show was worth seeing again.
That's what the days became: a show, a game of seeing what electronics the "virus" could get into and what it would do. It couldn't possess them, but it could mess from the inside. The TV's audio would change to languages Ray didn't even know existed, or the laundry would get twisted beyond recognition within the hydro vortex of the washing machine. The worst part happened right as his mom got home, as it had gone into the air conditioning system and made the room feel like an oven compared to the summer heat outside.
"Why in the world is it so hot in here?"
"Uh, uh, I… I was just checking to see if it worked?" Ray struggled to think on his feet. "I-it wasn't getting cold, so I… wanted to check to see if it was going to get hot? To see if it was broken?"
"Well, turn the heat off, I'm dying!" She went to her bedroom to change from her work clothes.
"I'm going to take a bath, Ray," she called. "If you need anything, text me." Now was his only chance.
"Get out of there!" Ray's voice was a harsh whisper. The A/C vibrated in response. He continued, "It doesn't matter where, just get out of there or I'll get in trouble!"
Loud sparks emitted from the A/C control, and a bolt arced from the control panel to his pocket.
"What was that?!" his mother called from the other room. Ray jumped but was quicker to answer this time.
"That's uh… the TV! It's a show I'm watching!"
"One of them anime shows? Turn it down, please!"
He ignored her – after all, the TV wasn't even on – and instead pulled out his phone. A pair of eyes stared back from his screen.
"Cool," he gasped. "Smart phones are computers, after all. This means I can carry you with me from now on! Should have thought of this sooner."
His phone beeped and buzzed with excitement. That excitement turned into noise, and the noise turned into about ten different apps opening at once. He felt his phone heat up in his hand.
"Oh, not again!" He exclaimed. "Calm down, man! You're going to break my phone, and then what?"
The buzzing and noise slowed to a stop and the apps all closed one by one. Ray sighed in relief.
"Well, that was fun I guess. Now, what stuff can we mess around with on here? One at a time, I mean."
His phone slowly, slowly, like a tortoise in comparison to a hare slowly, pulled up the browser. However, the browser looked like another phone screen, one with a background of an old picture of him when he was a baby.
"Wait, is this Mom's phone? You can do that?"
No answer. Instead, they watched as (presumably) his mom thumbed around the apps before a message came in.
"Who's Chad, I wonder?" Ray asked. Then he remembered himself and realized, hey maybe spying on his mom's phone wasn't such a hot idea. "Hey, okay, we had our fun. No more spying, yeah?"
A sigh of resignation as the phone closed the browser. But then, the messaging app was pulled up. Ray watched as the touch-screen keyboard spelled out a word, and then spelled out the name of the recipient. "Butts" was the only thing in his message, and the person it was going to send to was…
"Hey, don't send it to Mom!" But it was too late. The message sent. Then it sent again. "Cease! Desist! Stop!" And again. Ray tried to touch the buttons, get the messages to stop, maybe turn off his phone, but he had no power as the phone then started to type "Who is Chad?" Forty sent messages later, the phone chirped out a laugh.
"You're going back to the computer," Ray mumbled, throwing his phone down. "And I'm going to bed. I don't want to deal with getting in trouble tonight."
"You're hiding something, Ray."
He expected trouble when he woke up, sure, but not in these precise words.
"What? No, I'm not."
"Okay, maybe hiding is the wrong word, but there has to be a reason why you texted me the word 'butts' about a hundred times- "
"Oh, you know. Boredom, summertime- "
"-and then ask 'Who is Chad?' And how do you even know about Chad? Have you been one my phone?!"
Darn that little bugger.
"Listen, Mom, it's fine, it happens, sometimes a grown woman just- "
"I don't want to hear it!" Her face was red from embarrassment and anger. "You burn your lunch and leave it out, you mess up the laundry, the A/C nearly melts, and then this. I don't know what's gotten into you, but if you keep it up, your groundation will last longer than you thought… just. You better not get on the computer again. I know you were on it."
Ray frowned and looked away as his mother kissed him goodbye and left for work. Didn't matter what she threatened, though. Another day, another chance to sneak on the computer, and…
Please enter password.
Those three words stared him right in the face, taunting him. Those darn adults. Always so crafty. Well, his mom did suspect something. Before Ray could give up, as if by invisible hands, the password entered in by itself. Oh yeah, there's an awesome thingy inside the computer that's basically my new best friend. At this point, Ray didn't know what to expect, but he sat down in the comfy chair and browsed the web. Why was I worried? He could feel the weird digital eyes staring at him. The computer seemed to chirp at him. Ray sighed. After what his mom said, he didn't feel like doing much of his usual stuff. What's something to waste time on while pretending to have a life…
Oh yeah, Facebook exists! And it's not like his Mom could check Facebook while at work, right? With a few clicks and clacks, he logged in to his account for the first time in forever.
Look at all the happy people! This was something he could definitely waste a day doing. Maybe not making any posts or comments himself, but at the very least seeing how happy his friends and acquaintances and family members were doing! He scrolled down his timeline, reading each post little by little.
Me and my first Pokémon! =3
Hotrod using Ember for the first time
Squirtle Squirt, so cute uwu
Bulbababy is still so adorable! The very best like no one ever was!
He stopped scrolling when he saw a group picture of a lot of his friends at the Pokémon Center with Professor Oak.
Vermillion City, Class of 2018
Ray shuddered out a breath, his chest got cold, and his hands clammy.
Ray was brought out of this momentary brooding when the browser binged. He opened the messenger and saw one unread message from his friend Tony.
"Hey, good to see you online, man!"
Ray smirked and typed back.
"Yeah. Just thought I'd share my presence as a present for everyone."
A moment later.
"LOL. Hope you're doing okay!"
Ray started typing, but Tony beat him to the punch.
"I know you wanted a Pokémon real bad. No worries, though! Maybe next time, right?"
He didn't feel himself type, but letter by letter he replied.
"Yeah. Maybe next time."
He clicked out of the message to scroll through Facebook, but his mind distracted him. Maybe next time.
Another bing, and another message from another friend. What is really that surprising that he was on Facebook?
"Hi! Hope you're feeling alright."
Yeah, okay Becky, sure.
"Yeah I'm fine."
"Cool! Did you see the picture of me and my Bulbasaur?"
"Yeah. Pretty cute."
"I know, right? Adorbz!"
He exited the message just in time for another message, and another, and another. All these people wishing and hoping and asking him not to be down on himself, there was always next time, meanwhile making post after post after post of them with their own Pokémon. He knew they had their hearts in the right place, he knew that he wasn't being replaced, then he was well liked and loved… but still. The posts got to him.
He hurt. He choked up. He cried.
The not-virus seemed to chirp, but it wasn't playful. There was a sorrow in the buzzing of the computer, if computers could even buzz sorrowfully. Ray sniffled; he forgot that he wasn't technically alone. He tried to wipe away his tears.
"Yeah, sorry, I just… I think you remember, I was looking up that website when you first came here. I wanted a Pokémon, but I never signed up and I ended up late, so I never got one."
The computer's beep fell lower in tone. Could computers even be sad?
"I… I don't know. I just feel like the world is passing me by sometimes, you know?"
A chirp of approval. Ray stopped crying and looked at the screen; a pair of synthetic eyes stared at him sadly.
"I don't know what you are, but I imagine you want to feel wanted too, don't you? Like those Pokémon?" The eyes moved up and down; a face seemed to pixelized as it nodded. That's why you haven't left me alone, huh? We're kind of the same. Meant for each other."
The computer winced.
"Oh, come on. No need to get down. That was supposed to be a good thing! I'm glad I met you in the first place… if this is even considered a meeting?" Then a thought entered his head. "Wait… this may not count as a meeting. That means we need to get you out of that computer, whatever you are. We're going to meet, face-to-face."
The keyboard typed an answer on its own in the URL bar: "Won't I get you in trouble?"
"I don't care if I have to hide you, or if Mom finds out. You're pretty fun, you're worth getting in trouble for!"
The URL bar cleared, but whatever it was going to type, it decided against. Arcs of electricity flew from the computer, zapping Ray's hands from the keyboard. He jumped back in shock (not literally, thankfully) and watched as some kind of shape tried to pull itself from the computer screen. Whatever it was, it looked very hexagonal, or maybe like a duck of some kind.
The screen wasn't actually moving, but something around the screen seemed to act as a net keeping the polygonal bird inside the computer. Ray reached out to try and grab his friend, but his fingers went right through it.
"Come on! Do it! Just do it! Don't… let… your dreams… be dreams!"
Maybe that cheesy speech from Shia LaBeouf worked, or maybe it didn't even hear it, but suddenly the computer screen was knocked back into the wall as a huge surge of electricity erupted from it onto the floor. It struggled to maintain shape, sending little shockwaves around the carpet, but it couldn't completely become corporeal.
"Buddy?" Ray asked hesitantly. The surge of energy jolted past him upward, forcing him to trip over his own feet just to miss getting hit. The energy bounced around the room, knocking books and the lamp over and scattering papers here and there and everywhere. It squealed in terror, unable to control itself.
"Get back in the computer! Please! Don't hurt yourself!" Ray screamed. He didn't even hear the door open – only slam shut as the being tried to aim and re-enter the computer.
"Ray?!"
Shit.
"M-mom?" He turned to face her, expecting the wrath of a Valkyrie to come down upon him. On the computer! His house wrecked! The computer screen rattled as it took in the data and energy. A pair of tired, dizzy eyes appeared on the screen, shaking uncontrollably.
"Wh-what in the hell happened here?" his mom demanded.
He wracked his brain for some kind of explanation, anything.
"The… computer crashed?" Well, it wasn't a complete lie.
To his surprise, there was absolutely no hint that she was upset. Instead, she looked worried.
"Don't try and be funny, Ray, this thing is hurt."
Unexpected.
"It… it probably is. We tried to get it to leave the computer, like completely- "
"As opposed to into other electronic devices." She checked the computer screen and desktop for any exterior damage. "Unfortunately, this creature can't do it on its own or it will disintegrate."
Disintegrate? He almost killed his friend.
His mom turned to him, seeing him tear up. "Don't you know what this is, Ray?"
"N-No?"
"You're telling me you didn't look it up at all this week while you were sneaking on the computer?"
"I-I-I was doing other things!"
She breathed in deeply and smiled. "Go get your Pokédex."
She took the Pokédex he brought from his room, still fresh and unused, and opened up a flap to reveal a USB port. She plugged it into the computer and explained to Ray what to do. She pressed the eject button on the Start menu as he held down the power button on the 'Dex. The computer screen began to glow, and the virus finally started to take shape. An arc of plasma solidified itself into a proper shape, a polyhedral body, prism feet, and a pink head ending in a blue beak.
"Ray," his mom said, standing up, "meet Porygon. It's a very very rare Pokémon."
Ray and the Porygon stared at each other in awe.
"How... what… how?"
"I watched a Porygon documentary last week," his mom shrugged.
"No, I mean how did it get here? Through the computer?"
"Well, it's a Pokémon made up entirely of programming code, so it mostly only knew the computer world. I'd wager it just got lost and scared and confused when it was made and just… ended up here. All that pent-up emotion manifested itself, especially with you around, into something extremely playful."
It was fate. Destiny. He threw his arms awkwardly around the Pokémon. "Can I keep him, Mom? Can I, please?"
His mom folded her arms. "I don't know…"
"I promise I'll be good!" Anything to keep it.
"I'm not talking about you. That documentary… there's a lot we don't understand about Porygon in general, even though every one of them is manmade. I don't know if it's safe for me to handle, let alone you."
"Mom, those seizure rumors were just rumors, right? Come on please I'll take good care of it!"
His mom thought about it for a moment.
"Well, we'll have to keep it updated and checked for viruses regularly, and if you want to evolve it, you'll need to save up for the items yourself… and of course since it's not an official starter Pokémon, you'll need to get a proper license from the Pokémon Center, but…"
"But?"
Pause for dramatic effect. She smiled.
"As long as you take diligent care of it. But I'm sure you will; it'll teach you some responsibility. Or accountability? Whatever. You'll do a good. You'll be a good."
Ray and his new Porygon cheered. Then a thought came to his mind.
"Am I still grounded?" His mom laughed.
"You broke a lot of rules, Ray. Yes, you are still one-hundred percent grounded. But… I'll shorten it a bit and lighten the load, given the circumstances. Now clean up; your Porygon made this mess, after all."
It didn't matter to him; he and his Porygon gladly, proudly even, made it so that it looked like the previous events didn't even happen. It was such a good ending to the day, Ray even thought he ought to commemorate it. Ray pulled out his phone to take a selfie, beckoning his Porygon by his side. Before he could take the photo, his arm lowered, and he got lost in his own brooding thoughts.
"If I had gone online… I probably would have met you sooner! I… I really am a loser, aren't I?"
Porygon chirped happily. Ray laughed.
"You're right. I can't be a loser, not when I have a friend like you by my side!"
He smiled and snapped the picture.