CHAPTER FOUR: FINDING THE MOLES

There was a knock at the Viridian Forest Ranger Station door. Sal and Tristan perked up from their cubicles, and Sybil ran over to let their visitor in. "Hi, I'm Sybil."

"Hi, Sybil. My name is Jenny and I'm the detective you spoke to. Thanks for notifying the police about your situation. There's an ongoing investigation of Team Rocket's activities," Detective Jenny explained as she walked in the door. It had been a few days since the incident. Although Sybil's report was filed to the Viridian City police, it had to be relayed around to various officers and departments before it ended up in the appropriate hands. It was a rather inefficient process. Once Detective Jenny got ahold of it, she drove down to meet the rangers.

"I'm Sal, and I'm actually Sybil's twin brother," Sal got up and shook Jenny's hand.

"And I'm Tristan, the last forest ranger. I'm not related to these two by blood, but they're certainly like family to me!" Everyone shared a brief laugh. Then Sybil offered Jenny a seat and the four began talking.

"So originally there was a fourth ranger here," Jenny began reiterating the information she'd already been told. "And she turned out to be a mole for Team Rocket?"

"Yes, her name was Kina," Sybil explained. "Well… Maybe her name was Kina. We don't know what was true and what was a lie, honestly."

"She managed to keep from us that she had a Koffing and Weezing," Sal added. "All along we thought she just had a Beedrill and Tangela."

"We've gotten ourselves into a couple of life-threatening pickles," Sybil commented. "And yet, throughout her entire time of working here, she'd never once sent out her Koffing or Weezing for help, even when they could have saved our lives. It's astonishing. That takes willpower."

"Interesting…" Jenny said as she took notes. "How long did you all work with her?"

"She's only worked here for a little more than a year," Tristan answered. "She's the most recent of all of us."

"Has she ever shown disloyalty in the past? Why did your office employ her?"

"She seemed really qualified on paper," Tristan explained. "She never really showed 'disloyalty' before—just incompetence. I'd say she was great when she first started, but after a while she just started sucking. She didn't seem to like the job at all."

"Which makes sense now," Sybil surmised. "I used to think she was just listless."

"Do you have anything else to tell me about her?" Jenny asked. "Did she have any other pokemon? Do you have a photo of her?"

"Yeah, there are some photos of her with friends on her desk. You're welcome to snoop around there for anything that might help. She probably didn't keep anything too revealing there, though," Tristan offered. "She didn't have any other pokemon—at least to our knowledge."

"But once you're done having a look around her desk, we have to bring you to the hideout they were staying at in the forest. They left behind a lot of stuff; I'm sure some of it will be useful to you," Sybil urged.

"Thank you all so much," Jenny said gratefully. "And when we get there, you can show me exactly what happened. But first, I'll have a look at Kina's desk."

"Finish it off with peck!" Sylvester ordered. With that, Spearow swung down from its place in the air and delivered the final blow to its opponent, a Kakuna owned by a bug catcher named Cale. Kakuna fainted, and its trainer returned it to its pokeball.

"Wow! That was a great battle! Your Spearow took out all four of my pokemon!" Cale praised.

"Well, to be fair, we did have a major type advantage," Sylvester replied in a haughty tone. "You have to evolve your pokemon—Caterpie, Metapod, Weedle, and Kakuna are weak until they're fully evolved."

Cale frowned. "I can wait until they're ready. It's not like bug-type pokemon take a long time to evolve anyway…"

"True," Sylvester said. "Well, thanks for the battle!"

"Yeah, you too. Catch you later."

With that, the trainers went their separate ways. It had been nearly a year since Sylvester was mugged, and Detective Jenny had not come any closer to identifying his assailants or finding his Charmander. Sylvester was beginning to lose faith, but he realized he couldn't mope in bed forever. He began to venture off onto Route 1 and challenge trainers in the area to battles. He would never veer too far from Pallet Town, though, and would always return home long before nightfall. But it was a good first step.

Moments after the bug catcher had disappeared into the distance, Sylvester and Spearow heard a rustling sound in the bushes behind them. Sylvester's mind immediately jumped to the thought of ambush by Team Rocket—chills ran up and down his body as he quickly turned around and prepared to face his attackers.

However, just when Sylvester's body was about to seize in panic, the little head of a Rattata poked out of the rustling bush. Sylvester's stress quickly subsided as he breathed a sigh of relief. Still, he wasn't going to let a little Rattata get away with scaring him like that. "Spearow, get that Rattata with a gust attack!"

Rattata attempted to bury its head back in the bush, but Spearow's gust was strong enough to blow it apart, leaving the frightened wild pokemon exposed. The small tornado of dirt and leaves overwhelmed Rattata as it struggled to find a means of escape. "Now Spearow, dive in and get it with a peck attack!"

Unable to see much around it, Rattata was not prepared for an aerial attack from Spearow as it dove beak-first towards Rattata and launched several pecks. It wasn't long before Rattata was knocked out. "There we go," Sylvester smirked. "Nice work, Spearow!"

Then it occurred to Sylvester that he still had 4 empty pokeballs on his belt. He decided to whip one out and toss it at the fainted Rattata. The ball encapsulated it, shook a few times, and then lay still. Sylvester had caught Rattata!

"Sweet!" Sylvester exclaimed. "Now I've got two pokemon again." A yawn emerged from his mouth, and he realized it was evening time, and he was getting tired. Enough for today. He triumphantly began his walk back home with Spearow and Rattata.

"So this is it, huh?" Jenny said, peering wide-eyed at the Rocket hideout in the Viridian Forest. "It looks like a barn."

"They were trying to make it out to be a Tauros farm," Tristan explained. "That pen over there was filled with Tauros. We ended up catching all of them and sending them to Professor Oak in Pallet Town. His lab apparently has an outdoor sanctuary for pokemon."

"Yeah, it does," Jenny confirmed. "I've been there. It's a pretty nice and safe place to live for a pokemon. Good choice!"

"I did keep one for myself though," Tristan grinned. "Couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a Tauros on my team!"

Jenny laughed. "I guess that's alright since you did save them, after all… So can you walk me through what happened?"

"Okay," Sybil said. "So we had received a bunch of complaints about spillovers of wild pokemon from the forest into the city. The four of us went to check it out. We were wandering through this forest in search of a cause and I noticed that trees were being cut down. So we followed the decline in tree density until we found… this."

"This guy and girl dressed in farmers clothing were standing in front of the barn. It seemed innocuous enough at the time, but they were probably lookouts. There was also a Mr. Mime with them."

"A Mr. Mime!?" Jenny's eyes widened as she recalled the involvement of a Mr. Mime in Sylvester's mugging. "Can you tell me more about this man and woman?"

"It was dark out," Sybil cautioned. "But… they looked like they were in their late teens. They both had black hair, manila-colored skin, and slender-shaped eyes. The guy's hair was short, the girl's was long."

"Do you think you could sit down with a sketch artist and describe them more in detail?" Jenny asked.

"I don't think so… That's about as much as I remember. I couldn't really make out more distinct facial features than that," Sybil said. Sal and Tristan agreed.

"So then what?" Jenny asked.

"They tried to act like it was just a farm and that they had all the proper permits," Tristan told. "We knew they didn't because we're the ones who would grant them."

"I asked to see inside the barn and they wouldn't let us in," Sal added. "They got angry really quickly and wanted to battle."

"Kina stepped up out of nowhere," Sybil said. "She hadn't taken initiative the entire time, and suddenly wanted to battle them. She used Beedrill and Tangela, but she lost."

"Do you remember their pokemon?"

"Yeah," Sal said. "The girl used a Venonat, and the guy had a Gastly."

"Gastly…" Jenny said, writing all of this down. This was consistent with Sylvester's account of his assailants having a ghost-type. At this point, she was pretty sure that the lookouts at this hideout were the same two agents that attacked Sylvester. The Mr. Mime, the ghost-type… But of course, it was still too soon to jump to conclusions. "Okay, so then what?"

"Kina wanted to turn back after she lost, but we gave battling them a go," Sybil told. "Together, Sal, Tristan, and I were able to beat Mr. Mime, Gastly, and Venonat." Her face looked proud.

"But then the girl tipped off the agents inside, and they all came out and sent out their pokemon. We were majorly outnumbered," Sal inputted.

"Our pokemon were stronger than theirs, but we couldn't take them all on at once," Sybil reasoned. "But just when things were getting really bad, the wild pokemon of the forest saved us."

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked.

"All these wild pokemon came out of the woodwork and started attacking the Team Rocket agents and their pokemon," Tristan explained. "They must have had a lot of pent up anger towards the Team Rocket agents for destroying their home."

"Why didn't they just attack them in the first place?" Jenny asked.

"The pokemon of the Viridian Forest are very meek and good-natured," Sybil stated. "I bet they were just afraid until we stepped up."

"Okay, so the wild pokemon outnumbered Team Rocket?" Jenny asked.

"Yup," Sal answered. "Team Rocket was beat. We thanked the wild pokemon for their help and told them to leave for their own safety. We were going to detain all the agents until the police could get here… But then Kina betrayed us."

"What did she do?" Jenny asked.

Sybil's facial expression got really angry. "She basically sucker-punched us. When we were vulnerable, she sent out Koffing and Weezing. Koffing covered all of our pokemon in sludge, and Weezing diverted with smokescreen. By the time everything was cleared, Team Rocket had gotten way."

"But they left a lot behind," Sal optimistically inserted. "Have a look around, Detective. And then go inside – they left so much in there. I'm sure some of it will be of use to you."

"Thanks, you guys," Jenny said, opening the door of the barn and walking in. The building's interior did not match its exterior at all—it was certainly not an actual barn. There were several tables full of all sorts of papers and files. A couple of computers sat around the place.

One desk stood out to Jenny in particular. It had a large blueprint laid flat out across it. It didn't take her long to realize the blueprint was that of Professor Oak's laboratory. Why did Team Rocket have this? And how did they get it?

"What the heck…" Jenny quietly muttered to herself.

"What is it?" Sybil asked.

"They have a blueprint for Professor Oak's laboratory over here," Jenny scanned it up and down multiple times, trying to understand the sloppily written notations on it. She then looked around the desk to see what else was there. Within a cabinet sat a rack containing file folders. Each file folder was filled with information about Oak's staff. There was one on Professor Oak himself—that one was quite extensive. Then there were Melanie, Melvin, Dexter, Norbert, Agnes, and Eleanor. Jenny thought hard, trying to remember if this was Oak's entire staff.

Each folder seemed pretty meticulously put together. There were discreetly taken photos, addresses, information about their research projects, and other suspiciously private information. But one staff member was missing—Gideon! Jenny remembered interviewing him. Why was he not under Team Rocket's surveillance like the rest?

Jenny went back to the blueprint, attempting to locate Gideon's bench. It was the only one that had no sort of notations marked on it. She then took a more careful look. All of the entrances and exits were marked, including those to the outdoor pokemon sanctuary behind the lab building. Some of the notations were seemingly random first-names with arrows directing them to a particular lab bench or office… Could this be plans for an attack?

Finally, Jenny spoke up. "I suspect that Team Rocket may have planted someone in Professor Oak's lab as they did here with Kina."

The three rangers turned to her in shock. "Oh, shit…" Sybil uttered.

"I'm going to call my squad back at the Viridian City police station to come here and collect all of the evidence," Jenny informed them. "I need you to take me back to your station so I can get to Pallet Town as soon as possible."

"You got it," Sal said.

The four of them left in haste as Detective Jenny simultaneously called in a more thorough search of the hideout to the Viridian City police. She next made a call to Professor Oak, informing him that she would be returning to his lab, but not to tell any of his staff. Despite her assertion that she could not say more for the time being, Professor Oak cooperatively agreed.

Once they got back to the station, Jenny immediately moved to get in her car. "Thank you all so much for your help today," she said with genuine gratitude. "I'm sorry I have to take off like this."

"It's fine," Tristan chuckled. "You do your thing, Detective!"

"Detective, one more thing," Sybil said.

"Yes?" Jenny asked.

"If you find out where Kina is and you need back up, let us know," Sybil told her. "I'd be more than happy to help take down that bitch."

Jenny smiled. "Thanks, I appreciate that." She exchanged one last thankful glance with them, then got in her car and raced off.

"You mean to tell me that you were thwarted by three forest rangers and some wild bug pokemon!?" Ariana asked, not even trying to hide the disappointment and anger in her voice.

"Yes…" Martin, the operative in charge of the task, reluctantly answered. Shame covered his face. "There were a lot of wild pokemon. There wasn't much we could do… They all attacked us at once."

"The boss is not going to be happy about this, Martin," Ariana sharply remarked as she sat across her desk from him in her office in the basement of their rundown, abandoned Viridian City building hideout. "We invested quite a bit of time and money into that operation." To calm herself down, she began stroking the hood of her Arbok, which sat coiled at her side.

"And we made plenty of money off of the Tauros, too," Martin defended.

"I don't know if we had fully compensated our expenditure yet. I'll have to take a look at the finances later, but I doubt it," Ariana retorted. "You're lucky that I planted Kina in the Ranger Station when I did, or all of those agents would be in jail right now."

"You're right…" Martin admitted disappointedly, bowing his head. He was afraid to look up at Ariana and Arbok, who were probably both glaring at him.

"I guess it wasn't a total bust. We probably made most of that money back with the Tauros. And we didn't lose anyone," Ariana softened a bit. "You cleared out all of the plans for our assault on the Oak lab, right?"

Just when Martin had started to be put at ease by Ariana's words, he tensed up again. "There… There wasn't time. We just had to get out of there."

"You left all of our fucking plans there!?" Ariana's anger resurged. "It would be a miracle if nobody has found them yet. You are fucking incompetent."

Speechless, all Martin could do was look at the floor. He could hear the sound of Arbok hissing angrily at him.

"Well, I suppose there's only one thing left to do," Ariana sighed.

"What's that?" Martin asked.

"You are going to fly over that barn with one of our choppers and drop enough Electrode over the place to blast it to smithereens. I want nothing to be recoverable. Now."

"Now?" Martin muttered warily.

"Yes, right now. Go!"

A few hours later, Jenny arrived at Professor Oak's lab. She did not want to tip off Gideon by seeming like she rushed over, so once she parked her car, she calmly came out and walked to the entrance. She was greeted by Professor Oak.

"Hi Detective, do you think we could talk before you do anything?"

"Sorry, Professor, but I don't think so. I will happily talk to you after, though," Jenny compromised.

"Okay, I understand. Come in." Professor Oak extended his arm to hold the door open.

Jenny entered and quietly approached Gideon's lab bench, where he sat in front of a microscope. "Hi, Gideon."

Gideon took his time finishing inspecting his sample under the microscope, then turned around to face Jenny. "Oh, hello!"

"My name is Detective Jenny. I was here a couple of months ago about an investigation of an incident that took place between some Team Rocket agents and a local trainer."

"Yeah, I remember you." Gideon smiled. Jenny wanted to maintain an air of professionalism, but she couldn't muster up the energy to smile back. Gideon was not easy to look at. He was extremely slender, to the point where it appeared that there was no body beneath his white lab coat. His eyes were barely visible behind his thick black-rimmed glasses, and his overly gelled black hair was oddly combed such that it was split down the middle of his head and went off to either side. While he was well-shaven, his teeth were yellowish. Jenny hadn't really cared before, but now that she suspected him of working with Team Rocket, every aspect of Gideon gave her the creeps.

Seeing Gideon's unwavering smile, Jenny faltered a bit. "I w-was wondering if you could accompany me back to the station so I could ask you some follow-up questions."

"Um…" For a second, Gideon looked conflicted, but ultimately agreed. "Yeah, sure. Just give me a second to gather my things."

Well, at least he was cooperating. Jenny relaxed a bit. Professor Oak stood behind her. She turned around to look at him, and they exchanged a look of mutual understanding. Gideon was the mole.

Gideon quickly moved to lodge all of his files, books, and laptop in his backpack. He basically cleared his entire bench, stuffing his bag to capacity. Weirdly, however, he did not take off his lab coat. "Alright, I'm ready," Gideon said, walking towards Jenny. Another smile crept onto his face. "Oh wait, one more thing…"

"Sure," Jenny said, thinking he just needed to fulfill some kind of lab duty before leaving.

Gideon turned away from her, took a few steps back towards his bench, and then reached into his lab coat pocket. He pulled out two pokeballs, sending out a Voltorb and Electrode. "Use self-destruct!"

"Crap!" Jenny exclaimed. Within seconds, both Voltorb and Electrode exploded, causing an enormous burst and a great deal of smoke and debris to circulate through the air. Some of the other research technicians screamed. Jenny and Oak fell back, and all of Oak's staff became unable to stop coughing as they breathed in the fumes.

When the ashes finally cleared, Gideon was gone, and one of Oak's walls had a massive hole in it. Small embers were scattered across the floor near the hole. It didn't appear that anyone was seriously injured, though Jenny's head hurt a bit and Professor Oak struggled to get up.

"Somebody call the police and the fire department! Also, get an ambulance for the Professor!" Jenny instructed. Melanie, the lab manager, was on it. The rest of the technicians scrambled to make sure that their precious lab equipment hadn't been completely destroyed.

"Wow…" Professor Oak said in astonishment. "What was that?"

"Are you alright!?" Jenny asked.

"I think so," Professor Oak said, still lying on the floor. "What about yourself?"

"Yeah," Jenny said, ignoring the pounding in her head as she knelt next to Professor Oak and began performing palpitations on his arms and legs to make sure there were no broken bones. Everything seemed okay.

"So Gideon…" Professor Oak began.

"Yeah... I think my suspicion is confirmed now," Jenny surmised. "Professor, I think Gideon was planted in your lab by Team Rocket to monitor your activities."

"Well, now I believe it!"

A few minutes later, police cars swarmed the perimeter of the building. A fire truck unloaded a few firefighters who quickly mobilized to vanquish the flames, and some emergency medical technicians helped to load Professor Oak into an ambulance for transport to the Viridian City Hospital. Jenny accompanied him and his caretakers in the ambulance. Its sirens wailed as it rapidly took off.

"Professor, how long has Gideon been working here?" she asked.

"Gideon's worked here for a few years, I'd say," Professor Oak said, squinting his eyes in an effort to remember more clearly.

"How was he as a staff member?"

"Gideon was great. He conducts research on pokemon cloning. He was a pioneer scientist in elucidating the mechanisms of Ditto's transformations. He'd done a lot of that work in my lab."

"And as a person?"

"Actually, we never really talked about our personal lives. He kept it professional. It didn't seem weird to me because a lot of scientists are like that – they're private people. And they mostly just like talking science. I thought Gideon was just like that, too."

"Understandable," Jenny sighed. "How did he come to work in your lab?"

"Well, he just applied for a research technician job one day. I looked over his application and it looked good. He had really high marks from graduate school and lots of interesting research experience."

"Is there anything else you can remember about him?"

"Hmm…" Professor Oak sat back in thought for a couple of minutes as the emergency medical technicians monitored his heart rate and blood pressure. "Actually, there is!"

"Yes?" Jenny asked hopefully.

"I remember now! At the time, I wasn't actually looking to hire anyone. His application just haphazardly came in. Even though he was highly qualified, I told him I wasn't really hiring. But then he showed me this stunning reference he had from Giovanni, the gym leader of Viridian City. It was pretty compelling. I ended up hiring because I felt stupid turning away such an innovative scientist."

"Giovanni…" Jenny thought for a moment. Giovanni was a gym leader and prominent businessman. He was well known as a prominent figure throughout the Kanto region. "Why would someone like Giovanni be affiliated with a scientist like Gideon?"

"Gideon had done some cloning work with funding from Giovanni's business. But come to think of it, I don't know why Giovanni would be funding pokemon scientists. His business involves entertainment…"

"Entertainment?" Jenny raised an eyebrow.

"Like… arcades, bars, night clubs… Giovanni owns a bunch in Viridian City. They make loads of money."

"Yeah, doesn't sound like he'd need Gideon at all. Strange…" Jenny thought aloud.

The two continued talking as the ambulance made its way to the Viridian City Hospital.

Night was setting in, and Sybil, Sal, and Tristan were getting ready to leave the station for the night and head home. Just as she had finished packing her things, Sybil happened to look out the window and noticed that there was black smoke and fire coming from somewhere in the forest. It was clearly distant; she could only see it because it reached higher than even the tallest trees. This was a big one. "Shit," she uttered, unable to take her eyes off of it. "Sal! Tristan! Come look at this!"

Sensing the urgency in her voice, they ran over and saw exactly why she was panicking. "That looks like it's coming from right around where Team Rocket's barn would be," Sal surmised. A moment of sheer dismay passed as none of them could figure out what to say or do.

"Fuck."