Chapter 10
Burn Away this World
The rain stopped. Somewhat abruptly, but it stopped. Mewtwo, looked at the downed figure of Growlithe and lowered its head. Pathetic, it thought somewhat solemnly. Simply pathetic. To think I lost my self over this...
Giovanni strode over to look at the girl and then over to look down at the boy. He jumped over a puddle (Mewtwo looked a little amused by this, Giovanni jumping a puddle) and kicked Chris right in the face.
"He's still conscious..." drawled Giovanni looking down at him. Chris groaned and Giovanni kicked him again. Harder.
II
Celadon Rocket Base, B3
Prisoner cell 22
Chris coughed. Someone slapped him.
"Chris!" In a breathless whisper. "Wake up!"
He opened his eyes and he was in darkness. And from that blackness, a voice drifted from his left. "Wake up!"
Chris was wrong. Someone hadn't slapped him. Someone had kicked him. Right in the face.
Karma's face loomed out of the darkness and she was above him like some ghostly figure. A purple ghost.
Chris nearly screamed.
"Shut up! The guards only just left!" Karma hissed. Chris got up, or at least as up as he could get. More like a bent sitting position. His hands were tied behind his back tightly with a rope, but his legs were free. He tried to look around but the room was too dark to see much.
"What's going on?" Chris said woozily. A numb feeling on his lips and nose. "Where are we?"
"Celadon," said Karma. "The guards were having a nice long conversation and they mentioned going to the Game Corner after their shift. Celadon's the only city with one... in Kanto anyways."
"Celadon? But how did we..." Chris suddenly recalled the events that had brought them to their current situation and he sprung to his feet. He had been sitting and jumping up from the position tangled up his legs and he fell face down, hard. A simple moan escaped his lips. He felt wobbly.
"Don't get up too fast... we've been drugged," said Karma as she slowly got to her feet. She didn't seem to have any trouble.
"Drugged?" asked Chris as he got back into his sitting position. His face felt warm. He recalled having been recently kicked a lot.
"Yeah, injected in our legs. Don't tell me you didn't notice? They're numb..."
Come to think of it, she was right. Chris' legs did feel numb. Actually. It felt like he had no legs at all, but they seemed to move easily enough. "Where's Growlithe?"
"Obviously locked up somewhere," she answered.
Karma jumped into the air. In one swift motion, she crouched her body and the swung her arms under her legs. When she landed, her arms were now tied in front of her body. Chris could only watch, mouth gaped, at her action. He certainly couldn't do anything like that. He'd probably break something if he tried.
In her new position, she knelt down on one leg and examined the rope that binded her arms together. Chris was about to ask what she was looking at exactly when she sighed. "Really, this is too crude. Even for Team Rocket..."
Suddenly, with a slight snap. She pushed her arms apart and the rope ripped off. The skin where the rope had tied was slightly red. "Hurry up and get yours off."
Chris looked at her with an open mouth. She gave him a can't-you-do-anything look, and turned him around. Chris had about a second to enjoy the sensation of her hands holding his before he felt a burning in his wrists. With a sharp snap, the rope came off. The red of his skin a testament to how hard she had pulled, which whipped away any thoughts he may have had seconds prior.
The cell they were in was dark, with no lights inside. The only source of illumination was the room on the other side of the door. The door had small bars in it which the Grunts used to look into the cell. This small hole only lit up the center of the cell and left the corners and walls pitch dark.
Chris got up carefully while rubbing his wrists and approached the door. Since the Grunts just used rope to tie them up, he was hoping the doors would also have a simple lock. Unfortunately, this was not the case. It looked like Team Rocket used key cards as security, there was no number pad to guess or key to steal. Well actually, Chris supposed, a card key is only as useful as a key. We just need to steal one.
Suddenly the door to the bright cell room opened and a Grunt appeared mumbling something about golf. Karma appeared suddenly at his side and shoved him against the wall directly to his right. With his numb legs, he easily slipped and slammed into the darkness of the corner. When he looked up, he saw that Karma had hidden herself on the left corner of the wall, right opposite to him. She raised a finger to her mouth. A simple sign that meant, "shut the hell up."
The Guard's face appeared in the bars of the cell and his eyes quickly scanned the dark cell. For a moment, Chris thought his small beady eyes had stopped and rested on Chris but obviously he did not, as he moved on.
The guard cursed loudly. "Where da' hell those brats go?"
Chris suddenly understood. Karma was banking that upon seeing that Karma and him were both missing, he would open the door to check inside. Chris was sure the Grunt would simply turn on the lights. Or call for back-up. There was no way he would just open the cell door, no one was that stup—
With an electronic click, the door opened and the Grunt stepped into the room hurriedly. He spun around and, in an instant, Karma struck. In what seemed like a speed up of a martial arts film, she leaped out of her shadowed corner, and round kicked the Grunt in the face. A purple kick, mused Chris.
The Grunt toppled over. His key card sliding smoothly out of his hand and landing on the floor. Karma scooped up the card and inspected it. Chris tried again to get to his feet. By the time he was up, Karma had turned to him.
"We have a key card now. Shouldn't that make getting around a lot easier?" asked Chris.
"I doubt it," said Karma with disgust.
Chris was lost. "But we have a key card! If all the doors require key cards, doesn't that mean we have complete access around this place?"
Karma looked at him with an eyebrow raised and held the key card up to his eyes.
"Clearance D-Grunt?" he mouthed the letting on the card.
"Yup. This place may hire idiots, but I doubt they entrust complete security to such fools," she said. "This will get us through some rooms, but if this complex is as big as I suspect, we won't get anywhere near where Growlithe should be..."
Chris could see Karma had a point.
She turned and walked right out of the cell and entered the bright room beyond. Chris followed, but not before closing the cell door, locking the knocked out grunt in their place.
"It doesn't matter anyways. Even with the proper clearance cards. Some kids without the proper uniform wont go far without getting noticed and recaptured..."
"So how are we going to get around?" asked Chris.
Karma pointed up, Chris looked and saw a ventilation shaft grating. "We're going to scale the shafts."
"You think that will get us far?" asked Chris.
Karma began to pull a desk from the corner of the room directly underneath the shaft. "Of course, even the bosses need air."
III
The scientist looked down at the readings and his mouth hung agape. No way!
He typed a few more figures into the computer and more numbers sprung up. Each more impressive than the last. This was the type of thing that cemented your legacy and reputation at a place like Team Rocket. This kind of discovery... as long the scientist could give the boss the impression that he knew exactly how to extract the energy... give the impression that he had ideas. Cement the idea of the mutt and his name together. Make himself indispensable to the project...
The scientist looked up, through the glass, right at the specimen. A small orange puppy tied up as blue energy was sent through its body in long bolts. It was staggering to know such a small frame contained such amazing prospects...
With shaking fingers, the scientist picked up the phone.
IV
The alarm finally sounded. About damn time, thought Chris. They had been wandering around the shafts for about an hour and 40 minutes. Getting a feel for the locations and rooms around the base. They had found the kitchens, lounges, and even bathrooms. They were looking for Growlithe, but they also realized that they needed back their pokemon if they stood half a chance of making any sort of escape.
An explosion rocked the base around them. The duo froze wondering what that was about. Some sort of alarm? When nothing else happened they continued.
Karma was leading Chris. The vents themselves were actually pretty dirty.
Below them in the hallway a group of grunts marched off. Karma stopped in front of Chris. The shafts were small and they were on all fours. Chris looked up, directly at Karma's butt and looked down quickly. His face felt surprisingly warm.
"Hey... let's try this room," said Karma. She stopped crawling and turned left, heading along another shaft. Chris followed. They entered a dark room. It looked sort of like a janitor's closet. Karma banged on the shaft opening and it popped open. She jumped down and landed gracefully. Chris tried to get into a position to jump down but when he did, all he managed to do was land on his back.
Karma searched across the dark wall with her hands when she came across the light switch. She flicked them on, and they found themselves in what actually did amount to the Janitor's closet. A desk, several cleaning instruments, and a drawer.
Karma opened each desk cabinet, while Chris looked into the drawer. "This could be useful." He said opening the drawer for her to see. Several Team Rocket uniforms were stored inside in their standard black color. Karma looked up and studied them.
With a nod she acknowledged them. "That could help us look around, we haven't had much luck so far in the vents." Karma pulled something into view. A key card. "Clearance S-Services. It wouldn't surprise me if Janitors got more access than the average Grunt."
"Let's change into Rocket gear and look for a map." said Chris.
Karma looked blankly at him, she pointed to directly behind him. A large map was tacked onto the door of the room. Something which looked like a map of the base.
Chris gaped. 17 different floors?
The map depicted what amounted to 17 basement levels. According to the map, they were actually underground. Under the Game Corner in Celadon to be precise. It seemed as if the bosses quarters were on B17. Also, the map depicted that they were on B6. By quickly scanning the map, Chris found that the basement floors, as they descended, got smaller in terms of rooms.
"There," said Karma, as she pointed to a single room in B12. "'Confiscation Room', I'd bet that's where Team Rocket keeps everything they steal."
As Chris studied the map, Karma turned to the drawer and removed a Rocket uniform. "Turn around," she said simply.
"Huh...riiight," Chris said with a smile.
"Turn around unless you want to be blind," she said, without the hint of a joke.
Chris complied. Unsure whether she was kidding or not and not willing to take the risk.
V
They got to the 'Confiscation Room.' It had been pretty simple. Dressed in Rocket garb, no one had even given them a second look. They had found that the "Clearance S card" did indeed give them access to more than a great deal of rooms, but a few they could not open. Key Card locks marked A seemed closed, even to janitors. Yet that had not made a great difference. The base really was designed like a maze. Even if one way was blocked off, it simply required the use of detours to get back on the right track. This bothered Chris as it really only meant many of the passages were only for convenience.
It bothered Karma more, because it became even more obvious that in Team Rocket, a promotion to a Grunt would grant them nothing more than just that: convenience. That and a small pay raise and more hours probably. What a horrid organization.
Another smaller explosion rocked the building clearing their minds of their thoughts. What was up with those explosions? Chriswondered. Several moments after, a small earthquake seemed to shake the base.
Karma slipped the "Clearance S" card into the "Confiscation Room" card slot and it beeped. The door opened and Karma swung it wide. Not for the first time that day, and not for the last, Chris gaped. The room was piled with shelves of pokeballs. Boxes of backpacks and purses. Stacks of papers and documents. On a table directly across the room, lay Chris' and Karma's backpacks. Accompanying them were their pokeballs. It looked like they had not yet been organized with the rest of the stolen good, which was good luck for them.
Chris slung his backpack onto his back and grabbed his two pokeballs. He was about to release his pokemon when Karma smacked him. "Don't make a commotion!" she hissed. She pointed and he saw a camera above their heads. "They're looking for us! They know we escaped!
Don't you think they know we'd come here looking for our pokemon?"
"But..." stammered Chris.
"Yeah! They probably already know we're here. So go! Grunts are probably converging here now!" Karma slipped on her pack, grabbed her pokeballs and strode to the door.
"Hey! But what about these pokeballs?" asked Chris motioning to the spheres around the room. Hundreds of probably stolen pokemon, offered as prizes above at the Game Corner. It sickened Chris.
Karma didn't turn around. "There's nothing we can do about that. Let's go." She strode out of the room. Chris hesitated and followed her.
Chris and Karma jogged down the corridor, intending to get to the elevator when they were simply over run.
Doors to their left and right suddenly opened and Grunts literally flooded the passage. An explosion seemed to rock the base. Chris and Karma froze. They thought they had been captured, they reached for their pokemon, but before they could summon anything the Grunts had passed them.
Chris and Karma looked surprise. Giving each other mystifying looks they followed the stampede of Grunts. The Grunts led them to the elevators where they were slamming into available shafts by the tens. Another explosion rocked the base.
Eventually only Chris, Karma, and an elderly Grunt were left. The Grunt looked like he was half sick and half terrified. Chris took the chance and asked the Grunt. "What's going on?"
The Grunt turned around and stared at Chris in amazement. "Are ya' both mad? Don't you feel those explosion? It's a breech! The Red-4 alarm is sounding!"
An elevator finally opened up behind them and the Grunt practically flew into it.
Chris rushed to ask him, "Breech? I thought the alarm was sounding because of a prisoner escape?"
As the elevator doors closed the Grunt looked at him strangely. "A prisoner escape?" His little beady eyes popped back and forth and then he blinked, as if realizing something. "Oh! Yeah! Something escaped out of quarantine! An experimental pokemon! This is RED-4! This is practically war! The boss has already sent out Mewt—," the doors closed before the Grunt could finish his sentence.
Chris and Karma looked at each other in surprise. "What could have happened?" asked Chris.
Karma looked just as lost as him.