So it's my third day out. I know I should be pedaling slowly, in case the kid wants to catch up, but I've run out of food and my stomach is rumbling like an Onyx.
But would you look there! The trees have thinned out and ahead of me is this giant crater, with a city inside. They used to mine for the meteorite, but they stopped several years ago, when they found it. Professor Yew wasn't all that interested in rocks, he's mostly interested in what pokemon can do - like, the moves they learn naturally, and what they can learn artificially.
So that my destination, anyway. Yew's Lab.
But it's not easy to find. This city is big, it became the centre of everything, of the region really, at some point. Not only is the lab here, but the Daycare and the Shelter. They call it the world's biggest daycare, and as far as I can tell nobody's proved them wrong yet. The shelter is where all the unwanted or donated eggs go, and sometimes a pokemon when a person wants to let somebody else raise it.
Ok, I'm lost. Time to ask somebody. I walk up to this couple and ask if they have any idea where the Lab is. The guy stares at me blankly, while the girl bursts out laughing. As the tears pour down her face she points to this big, clean building, all white and glass, right across the street. Like I know what a lab is supposed to look like. Jerks.
So I walk up, and the automatic glass doors slide open, releasing this burst of air-conditioned air. There's a clean, white, shiny desk with a woman sitting at it, looking pleased at punch to help me.
'Can I help you,' she asks. That may have been what tipped me off.
I'm here to get a pokemon, I tell her.
And that's when I find out that Professor Yew's away on sabbatical for the year, to study.
You can imagine how I take this news. I have not waited my whole life to wait another year. After threatening me with some sedatives, I cool down enough for her to tell me she can still give me my trainer case and card, and sends me off with directions to the shelter.
It's a lot easier to find. The daycare and shelter share one building, divided. And the daycare has several acres of fields and ponds and such, all filled with pokemon. So I go in.
It's nice, clean, well-lit. There's quite a few people here, lurking about, with a hungry look in their eyes. There are about 50 pedestals with pillows on them, most of them with eggs on top. There's about a thousand attendants, clean and efficient, going in and out this giant double-hinged door, carrying eggs and new pillows and things.
I walk up to the desk and ask what I do.
They ask if I'm a new trainer, and then say all I have to do is go pick out an egg or a pokemon and bring it back here with my trainer card, and I'm a new owner. They tell me I can only take six per week, and I tell them that's unlikely to be a problem. I wander about the eggs.
They're all multi-coloured and patterned and I have no idea what they are. A guy in a lab coat comes up.
He starts talking very quickly, something about research and studies and would-I-like-to-participate. He's got a crazed look in his eye.
OUT! orders an attendant. He draws away.
She begins to berate him just as fast, saying not to show his face around here unless he was adopting, and that if he kept this up she'd have him banned.
She tells me sorry, they try to keep him and his associates out of here. I tell her it's no problem. we talk a little, and she's really surprised that I'm just starting out as a trainer. But I excuse myself after a while, a lot of eggs have come and gone and I want the right one.
There's just so much... choice, though.
But as I walked through the rows my eyes kept being drawn back to this green egg, with some yellow markings on it. So I walk up, to take a better look. It's very... eggy. But for some reason, I can't walk away.
An attendant comes up and says if I don't take it, they're going to take it to the back, eggs are only left out here so long. She says if I'm not ready it'll still be here tomorrow. But I tell her I'm ready. I pick it up, and walk to the desk.
*~*