Satori in Kalos
Chapter 21
Memories 2
"What do you mean you're closed?"
"S-Sorry Miss Komeiji, but..." The portly man scratched his neck. "Wulfric just isn't here. I don't know what to say."
Satori sighed. "When will he be back?"
"No idea. He often goes down to the Pokemon sanctuary but it's hard to tell how long he'll stay."
"Where is that?"
"Err,"
Satori cut him off before he answered. He didn't know, but was going to make a guess which Satori had no intention of listening to. It was "somewhere deep in the forest," which was entirely not helpful.
"Thanks anyways," Satori said and left the gym. Her friends were around the town somewhere, but she wasn't interested in trying to find them. Snowbelle was charming but that's all it was. It was cold and snowing and Satori didn't care for it. Instead she headed back to her hotel, sat next to the fire in the lobby and messaged her friends with her phone.
[Satori] Wulfric out of town; plan on going and finding him. Want to come?
[Calem] nothx have fun :)
[Rin] Sure
[Tierno] Calem and I made plans this week.
[Shauna] Yeah! Girls trip! Let's do it.
When Satori looked up from her phone, she saw someone sitting in one of the lounge chairs near her. He didn't say anything, but Satori listened to his thoughts. He was very aware who he was sitting next to, but he did the responsible thing and didn't make a big deal out of it.
[Satori] Meet me at hotel whenever
[Rin] I'll bring snacks. 1 hour?
[Shauna] kewl
Satori put her phone away after squaring away the details and took out one of her Pokeballs. She turned to the man sitting across from her. "Do you mind?"
He looked up from his tablet. "Hmm? Oh, no, not at all."
At that she tossed out Pikachu and Noibat, her two smallest Pokemon. She wanted their company, and they wouldn't take up too much room. Although Satori had initially gone out on her journey leaving her Pokemon out for most of the time, as of late they spent more and more time in their Pokeballs. Hazardous conditions demanded it often when a large group would be more trouble than it would be worth. And with six now, including Yveltal, it just wasn't convenient.
No matter how much they deserved to experience the world, Satori just couldn't handle it. She tried, but it was so easy to let them stay in. Plus, they never complained.
I-W-B-Q-4-4-1-L-Z-
Satori looked up at the stray thought. It was amazing how much she could learn just from hanging around people, that was clearly the man's password. Although she praised him for choosing something hard to guess, she smirked at the futility of it. She bet she would have made a great spy.
"Ah," The man exclaimed. "No way." Satori caught the headline in his thoughts.
Champion Diantha defeated.
Satori stood up, Pikachu and Noibat hopping out of her way, and approached the man. "Excuse me, can I see that?"
He nodded and held the tablet around, displaying the article.
Champion Diantha Defeated!
[Himekaidou Hatate, Kakashi Spirit News]
Amazing news, folks! Diantha, champion of the Kalos league, has been defeated in a fair Pokemon battle just this morning. The league computers automatically reported the battle outcome and the new entry, uploading it to the league website. When asked for comment Diantha... [read more]
Satori expanded the article and read through it. By all means it looks like the championship had switched hands. However, Satori was very aware that the article didn't mention who the new champion was. She wasn't sure if this was typical or not, and gave the tablet back to the man after finishing the article.
Rin and Shauna walked in a short while later, bags of food in their arms. "Yo, Satori~" Rin said.
"So where are we goin?" Shauna asked.
Satori looked up. "Not sure, actually. The Pokemon Sanctuary, which is 'somewhere in the forest.' I'm hoping we'll be able to find it."
"Oo, a good proper adventure," Rin said. "About time."
They prepared everything they needed to be out of town for a few days, and headed south of Snowbelle. It never really got warmer, but the snow started to thin out after a few hours of traveling. They ran into a few interesting Pokemon along the way as well. Satori was the one who had to battle all of them since neither Rin nor Shauna were really trainers. Shauna had the license to be sure, but her Pokemon weren't capable enough.
"Haha, thanks again Satori." Shauna said after Satori knocked the third Gothita out of their path. "I haven't really been training for battle."
"Don't mention it." The Noibat came back and perched on Satori's shoulder. "This little guy needs the experience anyways."
They hiked for the rest of the day, making camp in a nice glade that the snow didn't seem to reach. They set up tents and built a large campfire for Rin to cook over. For camping it was quite a feast.
"I kinda miss this," Shauna said. "Camping. Surviving in the wilderness. Encountering Pokemon of all shapes and sizes."
"Should have stuck around," Satori said. "We saw all sorts of things. Like snow. And swamps."
"Please don't remind me about the swamps," Rin said. Shauna laughed at that, and after their meal they went off to bed.
The next day, they got lost.
Satori shouldn't have been very surprised. It's not like she really knew where she was going. The idea she didn't voice to Shauna was she was going to try to ask wild Pokemon where it is. It is the Pokemon sanctuary after all.
But almost in defiance of Satori's plan, the woods simply did not provide any wild Pokemon today. Hence them being lost.
"Should we split up?" Shauna asked. "Cover more ground?"
"No!" Rin said. "Don't you know never to split the party?"
Satori was going to whack Rin over the head, but it was a valid point. "Let's just keep moving." They didn't find the Pokemon Sanctuary, but they found something. Eventually. It was close to evening when the trees parted into a small clearing with a mini-mansion in the center. It struck Satori as odd.
The small mansion was in a Victorian style, looking old and arcane. But there was very clearly a satellite dish on the roof, several generators on the side, and a thick bunch of wires running from the roof down into the ground.
Satori and company walked up to the front door hesitantly. She could hear thoughts inside, and knocked on the door.
"Just a minute!" Came a feminine voice. They waited for her to open the door. By the ease of which she opened it it must not have been very heavy.
"Excuse us," Satori said. "We're looking for the Pokemon Sanctuary."
The woman raised her eyebrows. "You're Komeiji Satori."
"I am."
The woman extended her hand. "Small world. I'm Alice Margatroid, Augustine's collaborator."
It took Satori a while to place the name. It felt like a lifetime ago, it was before Yveltal—before the power plant—where she had heard it. "You wanted to contact me about something, right? In an email."
"Correct, although events transpired to deny us that chance. I decided you had bigger things to worry about and didn't press it." Alice turned back to look into her house. "Listen, the sanctuary is at least a day's hike from here. You're all free to stay the night if you want, I have plenty of spare rooms."
"You live here by yourself?" Rin asked. Alice nodded, and Rin tugged on Satori's sleeve. "C'mon Satori, let's take her up on that." she whispered.
Satori agreed and Alice led them into the house. The entire group halted when they saw the inside.
Dolls. There were shelves full of dolls of all shapes and sizes, some very detailed and others half-finished. The largest was as big as Satori, the smallest about two inches tall. And running throughout the entire room were cables connected to computer towers and servers. They even hung from the ceiling. And all of it was topped off with numerous books in neat little piles.
"Please don't touch anything," Alice said. "It's less cluttered upstairs, I'll show you the way."
Alice led them up a staircase, and down a good-sized hallway into a lounge. She flipped a switch on the wall and Satori heard the sound of a heater buzz to life.
"It'll take a few minutes for the room to heat up," Alice said. "I'll go make us some tea in the meantime."
The group sat down on the couches, Satori and Rin on one while Shauna on the other. Rin got up almost immediately though and trotted over to the large TV mounted on the wall. Below it was a computer tower with cables running between it and the TV.
Rin reached behind it and pulled out a gaming controller. "Look what I found~" she said.
"Ask permission first."
"Oh, okay." Rin said and put the controller down. "Can I watch television?"
Satori nodded. "Just don't break anything, we're guests."
Rin grabbed the remote and powered the TV on, although she kept the volume low. She flipped through the channels and stopped on a news station reporting Diantha's defeat. There wasn't any more information than what Satori had read in the article.
Alice came back into the room. Following behind her, however, was a doll. Not only was the doll walking, it was carrying a tray with a tea pot and cups above its head. Satori watched it intently as it trotted over to a side table and slid the tray onto it.
But that wasn't why she watched it intently.
It was thinking.
At least, Satori thought it was thinking. Its thoughts were undecipherable, similar to how Satori couldn't always understand people thinking in different languages. It made connections and pieced together its actions and plans completely differently than anything else she had encountered. And it did it so fast she could hardly keep up. But it was still thinking.
Actually, it was very similar to how thoughts of Pokemon sounded inside their pokeballs.
"Neat, isn't she?" Alice asked. Satori looked up to see Alice staring at her. "Tell Shanghai how you want your tea, she'll pour it properly."
"Umm, with honey please."
Satori stared at Shanghai as she carefully used her little arms to pour the tea and lace it with honey. Then she stirred it up a little bit and handed it to Satori. She took it and sipped it, pleased with the taste.
Shanghai did not have any of the usual thoughts that others did when performing a task like this. She was thinking about something incredibly fast, but then her thoughts went somewhat silent, and then she started actively listening from what Satori could tell. It was incredibly strange.
"Something wrong, Satori?" Alice asked.
"Oh, uh, I was just..." Satori kept looking at Shanghai. "Is that doll thinking?"
"That is an interesting inquiry. Most people pass her off as a well-designed robot, which isn't wrong, but suppresses a lot of the interesting bits."
"Interesting bits?"
Alice nodded and grabbed a tea cup out of Shanghai's hands, who proceeded to hand out tea to the rest of the guests. "To answer your question, yes, she's thinking. By most definitions of the word she's even sapient." Alice smiled. "An artificial intelligence on the level of most Pokemon."
"Wait, she's alive?" Shauna asked.
"She's not biological, if that's what you mean. But she is definitely conscious."
"Is that even possible?"
Alice nodded. "Of course it is, how do you think the Pokemon PC works?"
"Ahh..." Shauna looked away. "Magic?"
"Certainly not." If Satori was reading her right, Alice was actually offended at the remark. "It works exactly how it seems to work. Pokemon have their brains scanned and emulated on the computer, where they can be shuffled around the internet to whatever terminal you need them to arrive at."
"Seriously? That sounds crazy."
"Well, the actual mechanism is highly technical. It's related to how Pokeballs construct, deconstruct and store Pokemon. This is the sort of topic ten-week graduate courses are planned around so forgive me for not being more specific."
"Eww, yeah, please don't." Shauna said.
"Yeah definitely not." Rin's eyes darted back to the PC on the floor. "So you program AI for games? I couldn't help but notice the controller."
Alice laughed and sipped her tea. "Once upon a time, when I was in need of money. My engine is still used in a lot of games today. Not nearly on the level of Shanghai of course, it wouldn't be good at all if you were killing zombies who were actually capable of rational thought."
"She wants to play on your TV," Satori said. Rin blushed. "Is that alright?"
"Of course. My selection is kind of poor, I mostly purchase games for the dolls. Feel free to play them though."
"You have your dolls play games?" Rin asked. "The ones who are AI themselves?"
"Yes. It's helpful experimentation for me and fun for them. Kind of like a stress test. Shanghai and the others are great at some games, poor at others. They enjoy it way more than the cube-and-button tests."
Alice smiled and stared off into space a little bit while Rin went over to turn on the computer. She and Shauna got absorbed in a game while Satori spoke a little more with Alice. A little while after finishing their tea, Alice said she had to return to her work, but they were free to make themselves at home.
They played around for a little bit, Satori letting some of her Pokemon mill around while everyone else played video games. Shauna tossed out two Furfrou as well. Satori's Pokemon were glad for the new play companions.
Eventually Alice returned and made dinner. She then directed everyone to their rooms, which were prepared and warm. Alice kept her mansion at a nice temperature, although when Satori commented on it Alice said most of that was from the computers.
Satori took a long shower and got ready for bed, but she couldn't really sleep.
Her room must have been above Alice's workstation, because she could hear her thoughts. Hear, yes, but for the life of her Satori couldn't understand them. They weren't as foreign as her dolls' thoughts, but whatever Alice was working on Satori couldn't even begin to comprehend. It was sort of distracting.
Satori shuffled out of her room, careful not to wake any of the others. It was pretty dark but the lights were on downstairs. Satori found Alice furiously typing at her computer. Alice didn't notice her guest, but Shanghai did.
The doll pointed at Satori, who was waiting awkwardly by the door. Alice spun around in her spinny-chair. "Oh, Satori. Is something the matter?"
Satori shook her head. "Sorry, are you busy?"
"Aha... well sort of. But I'm always busy. Is there something you wanted to talk about?"
"To be honest, wasn't there something you wanted to talk about? Way back when?"
"Well it was nothing specific. Sycamore told me—"
"You were trying to recruit me for something?"
Alice's eyes widened. "That is not something you could have just deduced." She gave Satori a look, and quickly hit a few keys on her keyboard. The window closed, and Alice turned back to Satori with full attention. "It was nothing malicious, when children show potential to become researchers we try to push them on that path."
"Oh."
"Yes, 'oh.' How did you know?"
Satori shook her head. "I don't want to say."
Alice sighed. "If you must. I have my suspicions already, for your information, but if you don't want to press it I understand."
The silence stretched on for a bit.
"So earlier you said Pokemon are uploaded into the PC. Right?" Satori asked.
"I did."
"Their consciousness and everything is transferred? Do they keep thinking, or...?"
Alice nodded. "There's a lot of concerns people bring up time and time again, so I'll preempt them. The Pokemon retain their stream of consciousness, their self, and it's a harmless procedure. High school students and undergrads always think they are the first to make some horrific discovery that Pokemon really 'die' when uploaded. The reality is all of this has been very thoroughly tested, and it is harmless."
"Oh." Satori hesitated and put her own thoughts in order. "Another question, then. If you can do this for a Pokemon, could you do this for a person?"
"Not yet, but we're getting there." Alice grabbed Shanghai and put her on her lap. "Shanghai is the first step towards modeling human intelligence. There's a long way to go, but not too long. This is my primary field of study, I can talk about this for hours."
Satori yawned, only semi-intentionally. "I'm tired, sorry, but I do want to know the answer to one thing."
"Shoot."
"Theoretically, if someone had...say, brain damage, or some condition that made them lose their consciousness, could you heal them? Bring them back with your computer chips or whatever?"
"Do you mean like a coma?"
"Sure."
Alice leaned back in her chair and gave it some serious thought. Satori couldn't really understand the thoughts, the terms and concepts above her head. But at least Alice was actually thinking about it.
"I think it depends on the extent of the damage," Alice said. "But based on what we know, it should be possible for a lot of cases. I'm not sure we have the capabilities at the moment though. Pokemon and humans are very different."
"Mmm...I see." Satori yawned. "Umm, sorry, I'm going to go back to bed."
"Good night. If you want a better answer to your question, I can point you to a fantastic medical doctor."
Satori thanked Alice and headed back upstairs. She managed to fall asleep even with Alice's thoughts running through her head. In the morning Alice and a doll she called Hourai prepared breakfast. It tasted great, and afterwords the group thanked Alice and was on their way.
Alice had pointed them towards the Pokemon sanctuary. Knowing the direction helped, and by sunset they reached their destination. The forest gave way to a vast meadow as if it had been carved out intentionally. The group had to stop and take in what they were seeing.
Sunflowers.
A vast, vast field of sunflowers. It was like a completely different world tucked away at the back of the forest. The field was full of Pokemon, happily frolicking among the flowers.
"Wow, so cool," Shauna said. She started to run forward into the field.
Don't.
Satori grabbed Shauna's shoulder before she got away. "Ouch!" Shauna exclaimed as she was jerked back. "What was that for Satori?"
Satori looked around for the source of the thought. A Bulbasaur slowly crept out of the bushes. You shouldn't have come here. Turn away.
Rin tugged on Satori's sleeve. "Hey Satori..."
"Yes?"
"Umm, maybe it's just my imagination. But are the sunflowers... looking at us?"
Satori looked around at the sunflowers. She hadn't noticed it when they first arrived, but they all did seem to be pointed in their direction. "I'm having the feeling we—woah!"
Vines sprouted from the earth and wrapped up Satori's legs. Before she could even process it they circled her torso, lifted her off the ground and tightened her arms against her back. She couldn't move an inch, completely and utterly helpless.
She heard the thoughts a second later.
"Well hello dear, how nice to see you again."
A woman in red checkered clothing stepped from between the sunflowers, a parasol twirling over her shoulder. Satori did not recognize her but it was clear she was a youkai. An extremely powerful youkai.
"Coming to return what you stole from me?" The woman walked towards Satori. Rin and Shauna were frozen in shock. "Not your smartest move."
The woman stepped right up to Satori. Even suspended in the air, Satori only just came up to her head. She grabbed Satori by the cheek, and turned her head from side to side as if inspecting her. After a moment, she let go.
"Oh, I've mistaken you for somebody else." The vines loosened around Satori. "Forgive my rudeness satori, I am Kazami Yuuka."
"Uhh..." Satori was at a loss. "I'm... Satori."
"I see." Yuuka twirled her parasol and looked to the others. Neither of them seemed capable of saying anything so Yuuka ignored them. Satori got the feeling she was pleased with their response anyways.
"What exactly, er." Satori didn't even know how to complete her thought. The vines released her completely and dropped her on the ground, but she was still in essence at this woman's mercy.
"I'm glad you asked." Yuuka turned around and pointed off in the distance towards a waterfall. There looked to be a cave or something near it. "A cute little kitten of mine was stolen. I would very much like it back, should you happen to come across it."
"I-I'll definitely do that."
Yuuka towered above Satori, casting her shadow over her. "I'll hold you to it, dear. And now I think you should return back to where you came."
They made it back to Snowbelle in record time. They spoke almost no words to each other one the way back.
It was a solid week before Wulfric came back of his own accord.
Satori didn't want to spend any longer than she had to in the freezing atmosphere of Snowbelle, but she decided to hedge and train in Wulfric's gym before challenging him. If she rushed it and lost, she would have to spend even longer here. So she only challenged when she was good and ready.
Calem challenged before her and won, and Satori was up next.
The gym was, in a word, cold. The ground was iced over and snow covered the rest. Satori had on a suitable coat and scarf which was thick enough to double as a disguise. A disguise that actually worked, apparently, since not even Wulfric recognized her.
"Oh ho ho, planning on challenging the gym little girl?" Wulfric asked. His voice was deep but lighthearted and he reminded Satori a little bit of Santa Claus. Tangentially, at least.
"Yes." Satori adjusted her scarf. She wasn't going to identify herself unless he asked.
"Ha ha, well, don't underestimate the ice. Sometimes it's fragile, but other times it can be a nightmare to break through." Wulfric held up his roster of three.
Satori removed the ultra ball from her roster and held up her five. Wulfric nodded, and the match began. Immediately Satori felt she was in trouble.
"How the hell did your fire blast miss five times?" Satori shouted at her Delphox.
S-Sorry, master, I don't know what happened...
Thanks to her ability, Satori didn't have to stay in wonder for long. Wulfric trained his slowest-looking Pokemon to have an extremely high agility. In retrospect, Satori really shouldn't have ordered Delphox to try her slowest attack over and over again.
Still, Wulfric's gym seemed to lean towards the "fragile" side of things. Satori still had an edge, an unbeatable edge with her ability. Her ability to read and understand pokemon was growing. Speed was still an issue, but she was getting better at recognizing the patterns in the enemy pokemon's thoughts.
Her victory was won with only minor difficulty.