Chapter One
Rubbing a hand over her tired eyes, she replayed the video again. It had been burned into the back of her eyelids by now, but there was always the slim hope she'd see something she'd missed the first hundred times.
The room where her father and brother were held was nondescript. Its only defining feature was the large banner against the back wall. Five savage points in lurid purple against a black field.
Team Galra.
A voice modulator distorted the voice behind the camera. His words were curt and concise, not revealing anything about himself. "… after you have located your husband's research, you will deliver it to the agreed upon location. If you alert the authorities or the Garrison…"
"Turn that thing off," came her mother's harsh voice from the doorway.
Startled, Katie abruptly shut off the video. She whirled around in her chair.
Her mother's face was pale and taut from stress. "Promise me, that you won't go looking for Dad and Matt during this mission for Professor Coran. Team Galra is too dangerous. If we just wait for their next instructions, no harm will come to your father and brother."
Katie gritted her teeth. "How can you trust that they won't hurt Dad and Matt? Team Galra are criminals!"
Her mother sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have let you help Professor Coran. You arranged it all before your father and brother… I thought it'd be a way to get your mind off everything, but—"
"Mom—" Katie protested.
Colleen Holt walked further into Katie's bedroom, looking from the clothes hanging from the drying rack and over to Katie's half packed backpack on the bed. "Why aren't you finished packing?"
Leaning over her desk, Katie unplugged her computer and started packing up her computer, tablet, and external hard drive. Katie called over her shoulder, "I just finished washing my clothes last night. I haven't had a chance to pack them away."
"You need to be at Professor Coran's lab in Altea by one o'clock!"
Katie shrugged. "It's only nine o'clock. I have plenty of time."
"Are you sure you don't want me to drive you? I don't mind."
Katie shook her head with a smile. "And put you six hours out of your way? It would be three hours there and three hours back. I've driven with you to Altea a hundred times."
When she turned around, she saw that her mother had begun folding up her clean clothes and packing them into her backpack. "Did you ever find that laundry detergent for traveling that I was telling you about? It's great for hand washing-"
"Mom," Katie protested, "if I need to do laundry, I'll go to a laundromat. Besides, I bet hostels have laundry facilities. A lot of people go on pokemon walk-a-bouts during the summer. They'd need to do laundry too. I'll be fine."
Her mother looked like she was going to say something; however, she was stopped by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Tucking her laptop charger into her bag, Katie looked out the window through the blinds.
"It's Iverson," she hissed to her mother, drawing them closed.
"Commander Iverson?" her mother gasped, rolling up one of Katie's black shirts and tucking it into the side of her bag. "You don't think he knows? Didn't you say that you wiped the security footage?"
"Why else would he be here?" Katie wondered, tucking the external hard drive into her bag. Then came the sound of two motorcycles pulling into the driveway behind the car.
Katie had broken into the Garrison last week at the behest of Team Galra. She downloaded a copy of her father's research onto an external hard drive before erasing it completely from the Garrison's server. That was all part of Team Galra's instructions. What her father had been working on was so interesting to them that they wanted to have the only copy of it.
What Team Galra didn't know was that Katie had made a second copy of the research for herself. Not only that, but she'd embedded a virus in the data so that she would be able to trace the computer that opened the files in the external hard drive that she'd given Team Galra. Her mother had handed off the external hard drive to Team Galra through a cold drop just last night. Katie had been monitoring with bated breath, but the files hadn't been opened yet. For all she knew, Team Galra hadn't even picked up the external hard drive from the cold drop yet.
Her mother bit her nails. "If Commander Iverson discovers what happened to Sam and Matt, they'll be as good as dead. Team Galra said-"
"Then he can't find out," Katie agreed, putting the strap of her laptop bag over her head. The strap hung across her chest with the bag at her right hip. "Keep Commander Iverson busy. I'll head over Professor Coran's lab. There's no reason for them to suspect you had anything to do with the break. You don't know anything about what I did. Dad and Matt are still on their research assignment."
Her mother pulled her into a tight hug. Katie closed her eyes as she rested her head against her mom's shoulder. Katie tightened her arms around her mother, taking in the clean soft scent of home from her mother's light green dress. "Be careful on your journey, Katie. I love you."
"I love you too, mom."
"I couldn't bear to lose you too," her mother whispered.
"I'll be careful," Katie promised, feeling her eyes brimming with tears.
Throwing on her green windbreaker over her white shirt and jean shorts, Katie snuck down the stairs behind her mother. She tucked the last two shirts into the top of her backpack and zipped it up as she hurried towards the attached garage. Once Katie was safely out of sight, her mother opened the front door to welcome Commander Iverson.
"Manning, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Colleen, it's good to see you. Is your daughter, Katherine, home?"
Katie closed the door into the garage quietly behind her. She tiptoed over to the garage doors and placed her backpack down in front of it. Standing between the doors where she wouldn't be seen through the line of windows along the top, she angled her head to look towards the vehicles in the driveway: two Garrison motorcycles, a mustard yellow pickup truck, and Commander Iverson's car.
A heavy-set man with dark haired young man got out of the pickup truck seat, while two dark haired young men stepped off their motorcycles.
Iverson hadn't come alone.
Katie cursed, crouching down behind the garage doors as the young men walked towards the garage. Luckily, she was just out of their line of sight as she noticed them peering in through the garage windows. She followed their gaze across the garage to her mother's car on one side and then to her gleaming blue vespa on the other.
"Well that's probably her vespa, so it's likely she's nearby," said the first guy.
"Hunk, doesn't this feel like overkill?" whined the second guy. "She's not some genius savant – she's like fourteen."
"Seventeen," the first guy corrected. "She's only two years younger than the three of us. Well two years younger than Keith and I. You're birthday's not until next month, Lance."
"Thanks for the clarification, Hunk," quipped the second guy.
"We need to hurry," came a new voice, the third guy. "We probably only have minutes before Iverson's done taking to them."
The gutters creaked. Then was the sound of feet against the wall and then on the roof of the garage above her. One of the windows to her room let out onto the roof above the garage. She never would have thought to climb in and out of her bedroom that way.
"I can parkour just as good as Keith can," whined the second guy. Lance, the second guy was named Lance. "It's just because he's quieter about it that—"
"Shh," whispered the first guy. The first guy's name was Hunk. "You're making more noise than Keith and he's the one on the roof."
"What I don't understand," continued Lance in a quieter voice, "is how a seventeen year old girl was able to hack into the Garrison network and steal top secret information."
"Well she's Professor Holt's daughter isn't she?" said the guy named Hunk nonchalantly.
The third guy swung down from the roof to land lightly in front of the garage. The light tread of his feet on the roof and then on the driveway was the only indication of his movement.
"Her window was locked and the blinds were down. I couldn't leave the note. Should we come back tomorrow?" hissed the guy named Keith.
"That's our best option," agreed Hunk.
Pulling her knees up to her chest, Katie rested her head on her knees. They'd prepared a note for her to read. That must have meant they expected that she wouldn't be leaving with Commander Iverson in handcuffs.
What did they want?
"Shiro's in trouble, I just know it," Keith, growled. "The Garrison won't do anything, but I won't stand by. We need to see what she knows."
Biting her lip, she opened her bag quietly and pulled out her computer. She tapped her fingers against the keyboard impatiently as she waited for it to boot up. It took only a moment to connect into the house's SmartHome settings and make her way through the security protocol. With a sigh, she connected to the floodlights above the garage door.
"What's that?" wondered the second guy, Lance.
"Is it a code?" wondered the third one, Keith. "Do you think that's…"
"Today. 5pm. Altea Pokemon Gym," said the first guy, Hunk with bated breath. "Morse Code. Smart girl. She'd probably monitoring the house security cameras."
"What are you guys doing out of the car?" came Commander Iverson's gruff voice from near the front door.
"Stretching our legs, Commander," Lance answered quickly. It sounded like an excuse even to Katie's ears and she was hidden behind the garage door.
"Any luck?" wondered Keith.
"A fool's errand after all." Commander Iverson grunted. "A horrible waste of talent if you ask me. Katherine Holt would make an excellent recruit for the Garrison. Her mother said that she has no interest in applying for next year's class. The family's too stubborn to understand the value of a Garrison education."
"Sir," interrupted Hunk. "Professor Holt's on the Garrison's staff. Surely that demonstrates how much he values a Garrison education."
Commander Iverson huffed. "Both Professor Holt and his son are graduates of the University of Altea. Katherine plans to apply there next year rather than at the Garrison. From her score on the trainer's licensing exam, she shows real aptitude for pokemon battling. Such a waste of talent."
Katie closed her computer. How did Commander Iverson know what she scored on her trainer's exam? She'd taken the written exam only last week to get her trainer's license so that she could own a pokemon. Did the Garrison have access to the scores of everyone who took the exam or just a select few?
Lance said wryly, "Not to mention the discounted tuition that she'd get at the Garrison because her father's a professor. U of A is hella expensive."
Commander Iverson growled. "Professor Holt may be an expert in the engineering field, but he's one of the weakest pokemon trainers I've ever seen. I doubt his son, Matt, is much better."
Katie gritted her teeth. It was a cruel assessment of her father and Matt's talents; though, considering their current predicament it was fairly accurate. If they were great pokemon battlers, could they have avoided capture by Team Galra? Matt had caught his Voltorb during his sophomore year. Her father was a genius with electric type pokemon - his Magnemite was devoted to him.
Hunk cleared his throat, "Um, The University of Altea does have one of the best engineering programs in the world."
"Garrison's engineering program is second only to U of A," Keith countered.
Commander Iverson snapped, "Enough. I don't want to hear your opinions about the University of Altea's academic programs."
"Yes, sir," said Lance.
"Sorry, sir," said Hunk.
"Hmph," said Keith.