Upon approaching, the infirmary nurse was outside the Organization building, tending to the injured.
"Fatalities?" Riker demanded.
The Nurse stood up, wiping her hands on her pants and leaving her Chansey to finish. "None, thank goodness." She said. "Quite a few burns. Whoever those men were, their Magmar was a force to be reckoned with." She shook her head. "There were more injuries to the Pokemon than the men."
Breccia pushed past the people talking and went to another table set up near the entrance. Most of the injured Pokemon, an assortment of Koffings, Zubats and Gimers, were beat up but still mobile. Her top concern was a Rattata a ways off, covered in several, painful burns. She could tell, just looking in its eyes, that it was in deep agony.
"Don't you have anything for this poor thing?" She asked the nurse, careful not to touch the creature in fear she'd hurt it more.
"I'm afraid not." The Nurse frowned. "Our supplies are limited and I have yet to receive another shipment from the shore." She motioned towards her Chansey. "She's been trying her hardest to heal all of the Pokemon brought to her, but she's starting to get tired."
Digging around in her bag, Breccia pulled out what few items she had left. Digging through her dwindling supplies of berries, she was dismayed to find that she didn't have any that would help in the current situation.
"Morice." Breccia reached out to her friend. "In the lab, we have a few items in reserve, go over and see if you can find anything." As Morice sped away, she pulled an Oran from her supply and broke it in half. "Here." She brought it to the Rattata's mouth, petting the top of its head. (One of only two places that wasn't covered in burns) "It won't help much, but it's better than nothing."
Riker left Breccia to her own devices, pushing past the Nurse and going inside.
The entrance room was a mess.
Papers were flung everywhere. The once pristine, white walls were spotted with burn marks. The hanging light at the center was blown out and dangling by a frayed chain. The secretary's desk was overturned and charred. As for the secretary herself, Ms. Morre was sitting in her spinning chair, trying to brush the soot from her Meowth's fur.
Her skirt was in tatters and her shirt matched the desk in fire damage. She still made it a point to run the comb through her own hair before Riker and the others arrived. (Though the char on her face hadn't been cleaned).
The moment he saw her, Riker ignored the damage around him and rushed to her aid.
"I'm fine sweetie." She said before he had the chance to ask. She smiled when he crouched at her side. "Scared the hell out of us though. I was just sitting at my desk and the doors blew out. There had to have been three or four of them. The guards were on their tails so I flipped the desk and tried to get out of the way." She exhaled. "I didn't do a very good job of it." She stopped brushing her Meowth and kissed her on the nose. "My little one here got quite a few bites in. She has a needle in her paw. That Beedrill of theirs was a monster, it took a handful of men just to put it down."
"Has the Nurse seen you yet?" Riker received a shrug.
"I told her to focus on the others. I might be old, but I can handle myself." Ms. Morre glanced to Breccia and Morice when they came in. Breccia, of course, had the injured Rattata in hand, applying medication to its wounds. "I hope the trip went well?"
"No better than it went here." Riker commented. "Those two were jumped by the same goons that attacked this place...at least, I think it's the same ones." He motioned to a grunt trying to pick up the fragmented remains of the front door. "There was supposed to be someone stationed at the docks, how did they touch down here without being seen?"
"We aren't sure sir." The grunt answered, weary when he saw a hint of Riker's temper showing. "I was here when they marched on the building..."
"I'd poke around the lab." Breccia spoke up, putting the Rattata into the arms of the Nurse once its wounds were tended. "We have men stationed outside. Lars would be the one to ask. We came in on the north side of the island, so whoever did this would've docked on the south."
"Unless they had a plane or copter." Morice said.
"That'd draw too much attention." Riker stayed by his nanny's side while she continued to fix her Meowth's appearance. He couldn't help but notice an odd suspicion creeping its way along his spine. Since his last conversation with Stotler, he'd been on edge about all this infiltration business. Regardless of it, he was placated with the idea that it hadn't come knocking at his door. Now with two incidents in under a week, he realized that even in the forgotten corner of the world his branch occupied, no place was safe. He knew he'd have to call the other executives. They'd likely have to corroborate their stories and then take them to the Boss.
And there was no telling how the Boss would react.
"I want you to go to the lab." Riker directed this towards Morice. "Tess and Neil should be there, check for damage and see if you can find anything."
"Yes sir." Morice mumbled this, unhappy that he, once again, had to face Lars. (In Morice's mind, Lars was like a raging infection: he'd go away for a bit, then come back just as annoying and insipid.)
"I'll be alright." Breccia told her friend when she felt him tug on her arm. "Go on, we'll speak later." Morice accepted her assurance and walked out the front, followed by another grunt who was instructed to tag along.
"I'll be writing to our men on the shore." Riker said. "So we can bring more here to clean up. I need to check security footage..."
Ms. Morre opened her mouth to speak, but only succeeded in slouching forward and grabbing at her shoulder. "Got a bit of a head rush." She pulled up on her shirt sleeve and it was then that Breccia noticed a pinneedle embedded into her skin. The poison took affect and she slipped out of her seat head first.
Luckily, Riker caught her before she hit the ground. One of the guards was sent to fetch the Nurse while Breccia tried in vain to remove the needle without breaking a part of it off inside the poor woman's shoulder.
"It must've been slow acting. It's a small amount, she'll feel woozy but that's about it." She ripped a small piece of fabric from Ms. Morre's skirt and pressed it to the bleeding wound once the barb was free. She glanced up to her superior to say more, but stayed silent upon observing the genuine fear on his face. It wasn't his typical stoic demeanor, but true, real fear. Almost like a little boy being separated from his mother.
Breccia wondered how she should address the situation.
A part of her wanted to assure him everything was okay.
Though, the more logical part warned her that, with his temper, he may not appreciate his slip up and lash out if she acknowledged it.
"She'll be alright." Her logical mind lost for the time being. "I've gotten my fair share of stings. Dad kept a medicine cabinet with my name on it. I always managed to piss of a Wurmple or two." To her surprise, her story elicited a weak chuckle.
"Sorry." He caught himself, but not in time. "Just got me thinking of all whacks I got as a kid." He motioned towards Ms. Morre, who was leaned up against the wall next to them. "And all of them from her."
"I'm guessing you weren't the most well behaved?" Breccia moved aside when the Nurse came through.
"I deserved every one of them." Clearing his throat, Riker motioned towards the elevator. "I need to get up to my office, I want to check the security footage." He stayed near by until Mr. Morre started to come around. When he left for his quarters, Breccia was more than content to stay and help the injured Pokemon. Instead, she was called to follow.
While she wasn't sure why, she played along as they loaded on to the elevator.
"I'm still not sure how they could've landed on the island unseen." Riker continued to speak, as if the person he was talking to were a trusted ally and not a glorified janitor. "I have my theories, but...I don't want to react too soon." Running his fingers through his hair, he caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective metal of the elevator buttons.
The red of his roots were showing.
"Just another thing to deal with..." He muttered, clinching his jaw and stepping out when the elevator doors opened. "I finally land this job and everything falls out from under me."
"You-" Breccia contemplated her next choice of words closely. "You seem to be doing fine... This isn't something you can control."
Standing outside his door with his hand frozen on the knob, Riker responded to her compliment with a resounding exhale. "I'd expect as much from someone in your position." He turned the latch and swung the door ajar. Despite being so use to his office that he often slept at his desk, the room felt foreign to him. The intruders never made it past the first floor, so all was as he left it, but knowing what had occurred left a foul presence.
"I didn't mean to sound patronizing..." Breccia said in conjunction with her boss' answer.
"No." Riker approached his desk, pulling out a drawer. He ruffled around through some papers and old clipboards before going to the one beneath it. "I'm sure every person here thinks I'm doing well ...I know this isn't an issue I have control over. It's just not going to look good." He retrieved a remote from the desk and tossed it on the top. After checking security, he'd have to start the grueling process of contacting the other Executives. Stotler, Sanchez and Kelly wouldn't be an issue to contact, it'd just be an issue corroborating stories and deciding when they should contact the Boss. "I'm sure you know the truth of things, about my...relations."
Breccia nodded. "I heard through the grape vine." She didn't bother blurting out that Morice was the one who told her. She wasn't sure if she was solid ground with Riker at the moment and didn't want to toss anyone else in the fire with her.
"I wasn't given this position. I had to work for it. Hard. Harder than anyone in my rank ever has before." Riker refused to make eye contact, casting his vision towards the wall. "I spent my entire life under a shadow with everyone watching. I had expectations to meet, and from childhood I walked around with them resting on my shoulders..." He sighed. "Our operation on this frozen hell hole is still young. It'll look like weakness on my part." Checking the back of his controller, Riker took a moment to compose himself before heading to an adjacent table with a monitor set on the wall behind it.
With the consistent drama since their arrival, Breccia had all but forgotten about the tiny bat perched on her collar. She only took notice when he grew bored and started chomping on her earlobe.
Going to the security panel, Riker adjusted the batteries in his remote before turning them on.
"There were a handful of them." He mumbled, moving aside when Breccia came in to look. The security cameras captured the main struggle outside. Five men, a Magmar and a Beedrill made short work of the guard's Pokemon. The camera in the entrance room was destroyed in the ensuing scuffle, so it was unavailable for analysis. "One hell of a brute." Riker motioned towards the Beedrill. "Donna mentioned as much, but I figured she was frazzled from the attack." Rubbing his temples, he leaned against the table and grumbled. "I need to check the cameras down at the lab..."
"I think you need to sit down." Breccia encouraged. "Before you pop a blood vessel."
"You make it sound like I can't handle the situation." Regardless, Riker made a line for his office chair and collapsed.
"Well, how are you handling it right now?" Breccia stayed near the security panel while her boss collected his head in his hands.
"I'm not." He added: "And if you tell anyone, I'll have you shipped back to Cerulean faster than you can blink."
Breccia gave a half-hearted, sarcastic salute. "Yes sir."
The phone on the desk rang. Riker glanced at it. Clearly contemplating whether he should even bother, he let it ring twice more before letting loose a deep, exhausted sigh. Grabbing it, he lifted the receiver to his ear. "Yeah...?"
'Sir, Morice and the other lab assistants need to speak with you, it's urgent.' The grunt on the other end of the line cut away due to a spot of static. (The fact that the phones were operational at all was a miracle).
"Send them up."
Due to the time it took Morice, Tess and Neil to make it to the door, Breccia surmised that one of them (likely Morice) didn't feel safe using the elevator and chose the staircase instead.
There wasn't a knock, instead the door swung ajar and bounced off the wall stopper.
Morice came in last, spotted Breccia and all but forgot what he had initially came in for. "Oh...I didn't know you were up here."
"Riker invited me, is that a problem?" She arched an eyebrow.
"No...just curious..."
"Lars isn't at the lab." Tess announced. "We figured maybe he was still at his apartment, so we swung by. The place was unlocked and cleared out."
Riker, who was slouched in his seat, sat erect. "He isn't anywhere on the island?"
Breccia felt a lump of fear forming in her throat. Ms. Morre commented that the intruder's Pokemon were "brutes"...that it took several men to take them down...
"Did you check the security footage?" She demanded, the authority in her voice catching everyone in the room off guard.
Neil answered. "We don't have the passcode."
"Riker." Breccia said. "We need to get down there. Now."