Electric Soldier
The murmur of voices began to fill the office as the first handful of officers arrived to punch in. A warm ray of sunlight peered through the drawn blinds as the sun rose high enough in the sky to grace the office with some natural light. Inside a number of bland grey cubicles occupied the center of the room while a few other desks were placed up against the wall. The newly arrived officers gathered around the entrance to talk about sports or politics while one solitary man sat at his desk in the far corner of the room, having arrived especially early.
"I brought you your coffee, Mr. Colson," the bright eyed young secretary said.
Mr. Colson turned from the piles of paperwork strewn about his desk and smiled warmly, scratching his short white beard and adjusting his Saffron P.D. cap.
"Thank you miss," he said. "It's mighty kind of you to spare a geezer like me the walk out to the shop."
The secretary giggled and nodded. "No problem Mr. Colson. Just call me if you need anything."
"That I will ma'am, that I will."
The secretary departed and Mr. Colson returned to his work: a report from the previous week detailing a pipe bomb he had been dispatched to defuse with his porygon. The call had gone by without incident, his porygon had managed to defuse the device without much trouble. Nonetheless Mr. Colson was to prepare a report on the nature of the pipe bomb and whether he recognized the handiwork of the device.
As he finished the report he looked downward and grinned, his porygon laying at his feet and gazing up at him. It had been a long time since Mr. Colson had first met the curious electronic pokemon. When he was hired to the Saffron P.D. some decades ago they had presented him with the artificial pokemon, at the time the newest innovation from Silph Co.
The porygon gently rubbed its head against Mr. Colson's leg and he reached down to pet it.
"One more week soldier," he said softly. "We get to meet both of our replacements today."
As if on cue, a younger man dressed in khaki with a Saffron P.D. cap approached Mr. Colson's desk from across the room. Mr. Colson imagined he was fresh out of school, although his hairline already showed signs of receding. The new bomb disposal technician had that look of youthful confidence, Mr. Colson smiled thinking he must have once looked that way himself.
"Mr. Andrews, I presume?" Mr. Colson asked.
"Yep, Jack Andrews. I've heard a lot about you Mr. Colson, I just hope I can measure up to your record."
As the two men spoke a porygon2 slid up alongside Mr. Andrews, causing Mr. Colson's porygon to cower uneasily underneath the desk.
"No need to be shy, soldier," said Mr. Colson, kneeling down to pet his porygon.
"Is that your partner?" Mr. Andrews asked, bemused. "How old is that model? It looks as though it were one of the first off the assembly line."
"That it was Mr. Andrews." Mr. Colson replied in his eccentric drawl. "Saffron P.D. had it special ordered for me from the very first batch. Gave it to me on my first day here."
The porygon attempted to come out from under the desk but found itself stuck, repeatedly bumping into the wall. Mr. Colson knelt and turned it around, allowing it to slide out into the aisle.
"A model that old must have such little memory," said Mr. Andrews admiring it.
"Him and I alike, Mr. Andrews." Mr. Colson replied with a hearty smile, tinged with regret. "I suspect that is why they're aiming to replace us old timers here. We've both been outmoded, as it were. Both me and Porygon, all we know is defusing bombs. A young man and his porygon2 are much more versatile."
Mr. Andrews opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by an officer from a neighboring cubicle.
"Hey boys! We've got word that there's a bomb out at the Vermillion City Gym, you need to move out!"
"So soon on my first day." Mr. Andrews remarked.
"I hope your ready for your trial by fire!" said Mr. Colson, stepping past him. "Come on soldier, let's show these boys how it's done!"
As they walked up to the Vermillion City Gym they could spot a crowd of people gathered outside. Among them was the immediately recognizable Lt. Surge, who appeared to be speaking to reporters to the left of the entrance. A line of police tape barred access to the Gym, people lining up along it and trying to peer inside.
As Mr. Colson and Mr. Andrews reached the tape Officer Jenny lifted it for them to enter.
"Your the bomb technicians, right?" she asked.
"Of course." Mr. Colson dropped his toolkit on the ground beside him and smiled. "So where is your bomb?"
"There's a boxing ring in the middle of the Gym where the battles usually are. It's underneath there. It has a timer on it that says it's set to go off in an hour."
Mr. Colson nodded and headed up the stairs towards the door. Mr. Andrews hesitated a moment before following. As they stepped inside Mr. Colson flipped on the light-switch near the entrance, the large room illuminating before them.
The inside of the Gym had a high ceiling and every inch of wall space seemed adorned with decorative lightning bolts. Across the room towards the back wall was the boxing ring-esque arena used for pokemon battles. Mr. Colson wasted no time marching across the room towards the arena, his porygon floating along beside him.
"Shouldn't you check if it's safe?" Mr. Andrews asked, keeping a few steps back.
"That I am, friend. It's just a timer. If it were motion or somethin' else they would have been calling the coroner instead of us." Mr. Colson gave his younger counterpart a wily smirk.
Reaching the ring, Mr. Colson gently lifted the tarp that obscured the view of the underside. Sure enough, a small bomb was laying on its side facing him about a meter away. The counter informed him that it would explode in forty-eight minutes, although he didn't think much of it, similar counters had lied to him before.
"Alright soldier," said Mr. Colson. "Your up. Don't disappoint me."
Mr. Colson patted his porygon on the head and lead Mr. Andrews and his pokemon a decent distance back.
"You sure that old thing can manage it?" Mr. Andrews asked as they each ducked behind different trash cans.
"That ol' boy has taken out more bombs than I can count," Mr. Colson said confidently. "We'll be eating seafood on the pier before you can say marmalade."
Both of the men became quiet, watching the porygon slip underneath the tarp. There was a moment of silence throughout the gym followed by the reverberation of a loud click, then nothing. Just as Mr. Colson and Mr. Andrews began to stand, the arena burst into a fireball, tearing the boxing ring in two and sending debris flying in all directions.
"Porygon!" Mr. Colson screamed as he first saw the flames tear through the arena.
The man took off running towards the remains of the ring, his cap falling off to reveal his thin white hair. Pieces of fabric lay strewn about on the ground burning alongside portions of his porygon's body. He stood in the middle of the wreckage for a moment looking about frantically before finally discovering the head of his poor pokemon laying the ground nearby.
Grabbing the head he held it to face him. The right side was blasted off, displaying the frayed circuitry and wiring beneath. On the other side the poor creature's eye looked at him weakly, somehow alive but fading fast.
"Come on soldier!" Mr. Colson cried, tears streaming down his face. "Ain't no bomb going to do you in!"
The porygon gazed at him for a long second, telegraphing all of its distress and regret in a single glance. After the moment passed the pokemon's eye slowly shut, the wires in the exposed portion of the head sparking and searing Mr. Colson's hands, forcing him to drop it in pain.
By this time Mr. Andrews had reached Mr. Colson and his porygon. The man grabbed Mr. Colson's shoulders, pulling him back from the wreckage. The explosion and screaming had also attracted attention from outside, three officers lead by Jenny charging over towards them. Irate, Mr. Colson tried to break away from Mr. Andrews to get back to his pokemon. An officer assisted Mr. Andrews in leading him outside, away from the carnage.
Once outside, an officer draped a blanket over Mr. Colson and lead him to an ambulance that had arrived outside.
"I'm fine!" He insisted, refusing to enter the back of the vehicle. "My porygon! You have to save it!"
Some time passed and more officers ran in and out of the building, Mr. Andrews went back inside as well. To Mr. Colson it all seemed to blur together: people were yelling and hollering, sirens were wailing, bystanders were running about or chatting on their cell phones. When Mr. Andrews finally did return he was carrying a large plastic container, he set it on the ground beside Mr. Colson who peered inside to discover the remains of his porygon.
"There was nothing we could do," said Mr. Andrews soberly. "He was gone."
Mr. Colson wept and ran his hand over the pieces of damaged metal and circuitry in the box before sniffling and readjusting the blanket on himself. Mr. Andrews placed a lid over the container, picking it up.
"Come on Mr. Colson," he said. "I'll give you a ride home."
With the twist of a knob the lamp flickered to life. Mr. Colson sat at his workbench, staring at the wall with a distant look in his eye. He was alone now, the house was empty; his ex-wife gone and his children far away building their own lives. He wept more, slamming his wrinkled fists onto the desk and flinging loose papers across the room.
This was all that remained, he thought, these cabinets of old photos and half-finished schematics. He turned to look at the table behind him, which stood against the wall on the other side of the room. He could see the plastic container in the dim light, the pieces of his porygon piled within. The head of the creature seemed to peer at him, although its eye remained closed. Mr. Colson thought it morose, the idea of keeping his faithful partner's corpse in his workshop.
He looked back at his work-desk for a moment, then rose from his seat. Slowly he crossed the room and picked up the container. It was heavy, at least sixty pounds, but Mr. Colson heaved it back to his desk, dropping it there with a thud. Sitting back down he pushed the container to the corner of his desk and he picked the half destroyed head from the top of the pile.
Looking through the broken portion of the head he saw a small metal box, dented but intact. Producing a screwdriver from the drawer in his desk he went about unscrewing a few bolts from the box. After a minute of work he opened the box, carefully removing the circuitry within.
Mr. Colson stared at the small piece of electronics for a moment, he recognized it as the central processing unit. A thin smile possessed his lips, and he gently placed the piece on his desk before returning his attention once more to the container.
There was a sharp knocking on the door of Mr. Colson's home. Lifting one of the blinds he peered out at the visitor, spying Mr. Andrews on the step. As he opened the door Mr. Andrews stepped inside, a look of relief evident on his face.
"Thank goodness your alright!" said Mr. Andrews. "Everyone was worried, you didn't tell anyone you were taking time off. We all figured you would take some because of what happened, but you didn't..."
Mr. Colson held a finger to his lips and shushed the man. "Come with me, I want to show you something."
Mr. Colson lead him to the stairs leading down into the workshop. The room was dark and Mr. Andrews waited at the base of the stairs while Mr. Colson turned on the lamp at his desk. As the room was illuminated a look of shock gradually overtook Mr. Andrews as he admired the machine sitting beside Mr. Colson's desk.
"How's he look?" Mr. Colson asked with a wide grin. "It took a while to put together, but I was able to find or make all the right parts."
The device was undoubtedly a porygon, though it was immediately evident from looking at it that it had been modified. The typical colors of a porygon were there, pink and blue, although each of the pieces of the outer shell seemed slightly thicker and shiner than before. Nonetheless, the porygon remained unmoving, its eyes firmly shut.
"I called a friend of mine, an engineer from Silph Co." Mr. Colson explained. "It cost me a pretty penny, but I replaced all the parts he needed."
Mr. Andrews knelt beside the porygon's body looking over it. "This violates the Silph Co. patent. What if they try to take it away from you?"
"They ain't taking him away without a fight, I'll tell you that." Mr. Colson patted the porygon. "All those Porygon-Z you see flying around violate the patent too. Sure it ain't good of me, but don't think I wouldn't raise hell if they tried taking him away. Lots of bad press in taking an old man's only friend away."
Mr. Andrews smirked and nodded. "So does he work yet, or does he need more work?"
Mr. Colson reached into his pocket and produced the central processing unit of his porygon. "Just watch. The hard part was puttin' the circuits back together, because Silph Co. doesn't want anyone to know how it's put together. I found out a way that should work though, I think it might be a little different than the original design."
Mr. Colson unscrewed the porygon's head plate and opened the CPU compartment. Sliding the piece inside he replaced the screws and smiled.
"I added some more memory, made him think a little quicker. It's not porygon2 levels mind you, but it should let him learn a bit more than just bomb defusin'."
Mr. Colson held up a small remote from his desk and pointed it at the porygon, he pressed the sole button on the device. With a jolt, the porygon shook to life and began booting up. The sounds seemed somewhat garbled and distorted, but nonetheless after a moment the creature's eyes slowly opened and Mr. Colson knelt, hugging it.
Taking a step back he smiled at the pokemon.
"You remember me, right soldier?" he asked.
The porygon didn't acknowledge him addressing it, instead swiveling around the room and taking in its surroundings.
"It's lucky to be alive," said Mr. Andrews. "Maybe it won't remember everything."
Mr. Colson sat down at his workbench and Mr. Andrews pulled up a chair across from him. They both watched the porygon gaze around at them curiously, it nudged the cabinets with its head and slid around on the floor examining the features of the workshop.
Mr. Colson buried his head in his hands. "I suppose it was too much to expect he would remember. I just thought, you know..."
Mr. Andrews rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "If you care this much about that porygon, why would you let them put it in harms way?"
"They would have fired me and taken him away, then they would have just given him to a new handler," said Mr. Colson sadly. "I thought if it were me I could protect him somehow. I thought I could take good care of him. I should have done more."
Mr. Andrews grimaced. "This isn't right, is it? We can't send these pokemon to die while we hide behind trash cans."
"When I was being trained some odd decades ago they told us a porygon couldn't think, that it couldn't feel." Mr. Colson glanced over at his porygon as it knocked a tube of white-out onto the floor. "Pokemon don't have rights, Mr. Andrews, they're property, and even then most people barely consider a porygon a pokemon."
"What could we possibly do?" asked Mr. Andrews.
"Let me worry about that, Mr. Andrews," said Mr. Colson. "I'm too long in the tooth to change anything much in this sorry world, but I'll be damned if I don't try. You've got your whole career ahead of you, your future to worry about. I'll make this right somehow, I just have to cut my ties with Saffron P.D. first."
Mr. Colson looked at the clock and stood from his seat.
"It's getting late, you should be heading home Mr. Andrews," he said. "I'll be in to work for my last day tomorrow. I wasn't going to, but they sent me a letter asking me to return the porygon parts. I'm going to go plead my case tomorrow."
Mr. Andrews nodded and stood himself, walking for the stairs. Mr. Colson followed, glancing back at his porygon as he left the room. The creature had finished examining the spilled white-out and looked up at him, seemingly lost. Mr. Colson shook his head sadly and turned off the light before continuing up the stairs.
A perimeter of police tape had formed within the center of Saffron City, a white command tent erected just inside the circle. Bystanders collected around the tape, looking towards the electronic device perched on the stairs leading to the entrance of Silph Co. Officers stood within the perimeter facing the building with their pokemon at the ready, masked faces peering out from inside the building.
Mr. Andrews paced underneath the shade of the tent, his porygon2 following him as he did.
"Is there any sign of Mr. Colson?" he asked an officer sitting nearby.
"Yeah, and I'm just hiding him from you putz. Quit askin'." The officer turned his attention back to the scene.
A moment later Mr. Andrews recognized Mr. Colson elbowing his way through the crowd. The older man ducked under the police tape before walking up to him nonchalantly with his porygon following close behind.
"I was sittin' at home, minding my own business when this news bulletin interrupted Leave It To Bidoof." He began. "It says: 'Silph Co. hostage takers block police with bombs' and naturally I run down here thinking, heck I might never get to waltz into a crime scene again and pretend to be important like this."
The old man winked at Mr. Andrews and smiled.
"Are you sure your porygon will be able to defuse the bomb?" Mr. Andrews asked. "I mean, if it can't remember anything..."
"It seems to remember taking apart bombs just fine, but I plan on dealing with this one myself. Funny thing though, this morning I was teaching him how to take care of himself, he's a smart little fella you know." Mr. Colson turned to call to his porygon. "Hey soldier, you should come show Mr. Andrews how you... Porygon!"
While out of sight the porygon had slipped out of the tent and towards the entrance to Silph Co. The officers made no move to stop it, suspecting it had been deployed by the bomb disposal unit as usual. Mr. Colson noticed just as the porygon reached the bomb, and overcome with terror the old man ran from the tent towards the pokemon. Mr. Andrews attempted to grab at the man, but the elderly gentleman slipped out of his grasp.
"Porygon!" Mr. Colson shouted, wheezing as he reached the pokemon.
The officers behind him yelled out for him to come back, but the old man knelt beside his pokemon, watching it as it worked. On closer inspection Mr. Colson decided that either the bomb's creator had included more explosives than intended, or the hostage-takers inside weren't particularly concerned for even their own safety. The bomb had enough explosive to significantly damage the foundation of the Silph Co. building and he anticipated the blast radius would easily reach the bystanders.
Standing up, the man waved frantically to the officers.
"Get them back!" he yelled in his weak, hoarse voice. "The bomb is too powerful!"
The officers didn't seem to hear or acknowledge his warning, instead motioning for him to return. Instead the man returned to his porygon's side, noticing that the timer had reduced itself to mere seconds. The porygon's eyes narrowed in determination as it slowly opened the compartment to the wiring on the bomb, Mr. Colson reached for a pair of pliers in his pocket and smiled to his pokemon.
"You've been great, soldier," he said with a tearful smile. "I want you to know you've never let me down."
Before the elderly man could close the pliers on the wires he smiled warmly and stared into the eyes of the porygon, his friend. The pokemon's gaze softened and the old man immediately knew; he knew from the twinkle he saw in his eyes that porygon remembered.