Chapter Twenty-Six
"Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences."
Robert Louis Stevenson
Giovanni stared at the figure floating in the tank. Of all the things he thought he might find in Manieri's lab, he certainly hadn't been expecting this. Now it made sense why some of the data they'd stolen from Manieri didn't match the DNA sequences of any known Pokemon. No one had been looking for human DNA mixed in with the rest.
"Manieri cloned himself?" Giovanni knew what he was looking at, but he felt compelled to ask anyway. He needed someone else to confirm that this insanity was in fact reality.
Dr. Gardner's shoulders slumped. "I told you it was bad."
The clone floated in a tank of yellowish fluid. A black compression suit covered its body, and a mask over its face provided oxygen while it hung in a state of suspended animation. The monitor beside the tank measuring the clone's vitals was the only indication it was alive. Two identical glass cylinders contained smaller clones that were still recognizably Manieri. Giovanni backed away from the tanks and turned to the shrouded gurney.
"What's under here?" Giovanni asked even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Dr. Gardner stared at Giovanni with wide eyes. He didn't answer at first, and then he stuttered something incomprehensible. Giovanni reached for the edge of the sheet.
"Don't!" Dr. Gardner finally found his voice, but it was too late.
Giovanni drew back from the abomination beneath the cover. The dissected corpse had Manieri's face, but it looked like it had been dead for a while. A y-shaped incision split the body down the front, exposing viscera and bone. Most of the internal organs were missing, leaving behind empty cavities.
"This is… This is one of the clones that didn't make the cut." Dr. Gardner's voice was almost a whisper.
"So you people killed it?" Giovanni felt vaguely ill as he examined the lifeless body in front of him.
"It was Mr. Manieri's orders. He needs and heir to his empire, so it's important that the clone replacing him meets a very high set of standards. We've yet to create a perfect specimen, so we need to study the failures to figure out what went wrong."
"And then you just leave them here?"
"Well, no, this was an unusual situation. Your escape earlier interrupted the postmortem, and we had to abandon it rather abruptly. Normally we would have completed the examination and properly disposed of the remains." Dr. Gardner made it sound like his explanation should make Giovanni feel better.
Unsurprisingly, it did not. Giovanni threw the sheet back over the corpse. He'd assumed he was prepared for whatever he might encounter in Manieri's lab. Manieri was sadistic, and he was cruel, so there was no doubt some disturbing research going on, but this… This crossed a line Giovanni thought even Manieri wouldn't dare to trifle with. This was madness.
"Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. Manieri wanted an heir for his Team Rocket imitation, and instead of designating a friend or family member like any sane person would do, he cloned himself?"
Dr. Gardner hesitated, and then he nodded. "Mr. Manieri couldn't find anyone he felt was qualified to take his place. He decided only he himself can carry out his vision for Team Rocket. The Pokemon breeding program is profitable for us, but we really needed a side project to cover for our real work since human cloning is still illegal."
"How do you and your colleagues justify going along with this?" Giovanni demanded as he looked at the shrouded corpse again.
Dr. Gardner regarded Giovanni reproachfully. "I don't know what right you have to judge me when this is really all your fault."
"My fault? How is any of this remotely my fault?"
"Mr. Manieri wouldn't have been so desperate to designate an heir if he didn't suspect you were plotting to assassinate him. You're the one who drove him to see this as his only option for survival."
"What? He's the one who tried to kill me multiple times. I never—" Giovanni trailed off. He was about to deny he'd ever planned to have Manieri killed, but it was an option he'd discussed with his executives with some regularity. "You know, there's no point in arguing over whose fault this is, but I think we can both agree this is crazy."
"Yeah, well, I never wanted to be a part of it, okay? The pay was good, and I was about to get laid off at my old job. Companies aren't funding bioengineering projects like they used to. I wouldn't have signed on if I'd known we'd be doing this, but once we knew everything, he wouldn't let us leave. He says we owe him, and there are consequences for betrayal." Dr. Gardner's voice took on a pleading tone. "He knows where my family is. I can't risk doing anything that might hurt them. You can understand that, can't you?"
Better than you realize, Giovanni wanted to say, but he chose to remain silent instead. He turned back to the tank behind him.
"What about this one?" Giovanni gestured to the clone. "Will it make the cut, or are you going to kill it too?"
"It's too early to tell," Dr. Gardner said softly. "This one is almost fully developed. We invented a technique for accelerating the clones' growth, and we can produce a full-grown specimen in about a year. The process isn't perfect yet, but with every iteration we come closer and closer to engineering a clone that meets Mr. Manieri's specifications."
"Then what?" Giovanni demanded. "Even if you can create a clone that's a perfect physical match for Manieri, how is it supposed to take over his operations? It's not like it will know anything about running his organization."
"Ah, yes, that's where this beauty comes in." Dr. Gardner's demeanor changed all at once as he pointed to the machine in the corner. His eyes lit up as though he were introducing his pride and joy to the world. "It took us even longer to design this than it did to streamline the cloning process, but it was well worth the effort."
Giovanni stepped around the gurney to examine the machine. At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a simple reclining chair, reminiscent of the ones a dentist might use. However, upon closer inspection, Giovanni noticed shackles to hold the arms and legs in place. Thick cables connected the chair to a large bank of computers, and a helmet-shaped device was suspended overhead.
"What does it do?" Curiosity got the better of Giovanni.
"This allows us to convert the contents of a brain into digital format." Dr. Gardner swelled with pride.
"You're kidding."
"Not at all. It's a lengthy process, but we can record the electrical impulses of any brain to reconstruct every thought, every memory, ever experience it has ever had. Once we assemble a model of the mind, we can reverse the process and use electromagnetic pulses to implant those same thoughts and memories into another brain. It's rather simple with the clones since their brains are blank canvases. Should anything happen to Mr. Manieri, we can overwrite the brain of a suitable clone to match his, and it will be as though he's reborn into a new body."
"That's—" Giovanni wasn't even sure what to say.
"Impressive? Genius?" Dr. Gardner attempted to finish the sentence for him.
"Completely insane and irresponsible," Giovanni concluded.
Dr. Gardner's posture drooped as though he had been deflated. "I don't think you understand the implications of this technology. With a little tweaking, the possibilities are—"
"Dr. Gardner, I'm surprised at you." A cold voice from the door cut off the researcher's speech.
Giovanni spun around to find none other than Silvano Manieri framed in the entrance to the lab. The harsh white light overhead glistened on the pistol he held in his hand. He sneered at Giovanni.
"I suspected I might find you here. They kept telling me you were dead, but somehow I knew that was too good to be true. When my Pokemon started escaping from the laboratory, they told me it was a system malfunction, that there was no way you could be behind it. Yet I knew I couldn't trust any of my employees," Manieri said with a meaningful look at Dr. Gardner. "I consulted my Xatu instead, and the omen cards don't lie. My Pokemon told me you would be threatening the heart of my empire, and sure enough, here you are listening to one of my underlings spill the details of my plans for immortality."
Dr. Gardner gave a muffled squeal of terror and fell to his knees. "Mr. Manieri, I swear I didn't want to tell him anything. He made me do it! He said he'd kill me!"
"If that's the case, you need not have concerned yourself. Empty threats are one of Giovanni's specialties."
Giovanni tucked his revolver behind his back. Manieri was better-armed and undoubtedly had more than one shot to spare. His only hope was to keep the element of surprise on his side. All things considered, he might have a chance. Manieri could have shot him while his back was turned. Since he was still alive, Manieri must think he could still be of use.
"I'm sorry, sir," Dr. Gardner gasped. "I didn't mean to tell him anything important."
"Relax, my friend." Manieri's voice was oddly soothing. "It's all perfectly understandable."
Manieri extended a hand to help Dr. Gardner up. Giovanni could have told him it was a bad idea to trust Manieri, but the scientist reached up toward his boss. It was now or never, Giovanni decided, gripping the handle of the revolver tightly.
"Thank you, sir, I—"
Dr. Gardner was cut off mid-sentence as Manieri seized hold of his arm and jerked the researcher's body in front of his own. Giovanni cursed under his breath. Manieri must have seen his sudden movement in his peripheral vision. Dr. Gardner let out a frightened sob as he found himself between the two leaders of Team Rocket, each with a gun pointed in his general direction.
"Nice try, Giovanni." Manieri smirked over Dr. Gardner's shoulder. "You'll need to do better than that to catch me by surprise though. Go ahead and shoot. See what happens."
Giovanni gritted his teeth as he tried to get a clear shot around Dr. Gardner. It was no use. Dr. Gardner was broader than Manieri, making him an excellent human shield. Manieri kept moving just enough that Giovanni couldn't be sure he wouldn't miss.
"That's what I thought," Manieri taunted. "All you need to do is shoot the scientist to get to me, but you're too soft to do it. That's why I was always supposed to have Team Rocket. You've never had the nerve to do what needs to be done."
Giovanni ignored the insult. He wasn't about to reveal his reluctance to fire was borne more out of not wanting to waste his single shot than concern for Dr. Gardner's welfare. He had to tread carefully and make Manieri think they were on equal footing.
"So, now that you've found my most classified project, you have to admit, it's clever, isn't it?" Manieri asked, holding tight to the struggling Dr. Gardner.
"Which part am I supposed to be impressed by? The half-baked plan for immortality or that you've been butchering your own clones?"
Manieri laughed. "Do you think you can claim the moral high ground here? I know all about your experiments on New Island. I'm sure you chose that location for your laboratory because you liked the scenery, not because it allowed you to exploit loopholes in Kantonian law, right?" Manieri's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "All those poor people who lost their lives when your rogue Pokemon got out of control… They're dead because of you."
"I'm well aware of that," Giovanni said coldly.
He kept his revolver trained on Manieri and his hostage. Now and then Manieri would move and almost open himself up, but just as quickly he'd be behind Dr. Gardner again. Giovanni realized this was getting him nowhere. He couldn't stay in this standoff for long. It was only a matter of time before Manieri's reinforcements arrived.
"So you admit you killed those other scientists. Why not one more?" Manieri sneered as Dr. Gardner whimpered.
Giovanni ignored Manieri and decided what he needed to do. It might be a waste of his only shot, but Giovanni couldn't see any other way of compromising Manieri's position. He took aim and squeezed the trigger.
Dr. Gardner shrieked as the revolver fired. However, the researcher was not Giovanni's target. Yellow fluid gushed from the bullet hole in the tank behind Manieri. The weakened tank cracked under the force of the escaping liquid, and then it shattered. A flood of cloning fluid splattered over Manieri and Dr. Gardner and washed over the floor. The clone flopped out of the tank onto the concrete.
It was a small distraction, but it was all Giovanni needed. He lunged toward Manieri. Manieri shoved Dr. Gardner aside and tried to aim his pistol, but he couldn't get the weapon up fast enough. Giovanni seized his wrist. Manieri frantically pulled the trigger, but Giovanni had already forced his aim upward. The bullet lodged itself somewhere in the ceiling.
Even with his assorted injuries, Giovanni was finally at an advantage. Manieri couldn't match his physical strength. It had been foolish of him to set foot in the lab without his guards. Dr. Gardner wasn't any help. The scientist had thrown himself beneath the gurney to hide the moment Manieri released him.
Manieri twisted wildly in an attempt to break Giovanni's grip, but he couldn't compete with his opponent's size. Giovanni dug his thumb into the pressure point on Manieri's wrist, trying to make him drop the gun. Manieri gave a cry of pain, but he refused to let go. They struggled over the weapon, fighting to keep their footing on the viscous liquid that now covered the laboratory floor.
As they grappled for control of the gun, Giovanni fumbled along the side of the pistol with his injured hand until he found the release for the magazine. He squeezed the button, ejecting the clip out the bottom of the weapon and sending it clattering across the floor. Now it was Manieri who only had one shot left. Giovanni didn't hesitate. He forced Manieri's fingers aside and pulled the trigger, sending the last bullet in the chamber into one of the machines lining the wall. The instrument panel sparked and fizzled for a moment, and then it went dark. Giovanni gave his nemesis an abrupt shove, catching Manieri off-balance enough to send him crashing to the ground. As the Gold Rocket leader scrambled to regain his footing, Giovanni moved to block the exit.
"I suppose you think you're winning," Manieri said as he stood up straight and recovered some measure of his composure, "but you're a fool if you believe you're going to make it out of my headquarters alive."
Despite Manieri's bravado, Giovanni could see the uneasiness in his eyes. He knew he had lost control of the situation.
"I think my odds of survival just increased exponentially," Giovanni replied. "You should have shot me when you had the chance. That's why I was always supposed to have Team Rocket. You'd rather stand around gloating than do what needs to be done."
Manieri's face flushed with anger as Giovanni turned some of his own words back at him. His eyes scanned the lab, searching for anything he could use to regain the upper hand, but it was no use. Giovanni folded his arms across his chest and waited. Any moment now, Manieri would try something desperate and quite possibly stupid.
"You're right. I should have shot you, and I'll see that I kill you myself before we're finished here," Manieri said, his entire body rigid. "That seems to be the only way to ensure you won't come back to haunt me."
Before Giovanni had a chance to respond, Manieri hurled the empty gun at him and bolted toward the exit. Giovanni ducked, and the pistol sailed harmlessly over his head. Even with the distraction, Manieri wasn't fast enough to make it past Giovanni, who grabbed hold of him and threw him backward.
Manieri stumbled and fell right into the seat of Dr. Gardner's brain reading contraption. As soon as the machine detected his weight, the arm and leg restraints snapped shut. Manieri managed to get his right arm free, but the shackles held the left arm and both legs tightly in place.
"Well, it looks like your own creation has thwarted you," Giovanni said as he approached the machine. "Rather fitting, don't you think?"
Manieri glared at him defiantly. "My guards will be here any moment."
"Yes, they seem to be in a great hurry to come to your rescue." Giovanni couldn't resist mocking his rival.
As Manieri struggled in vain to free himself, Giovanni grabbed his right arm and forced it down into the remaining shackle. The machine sensed Manieri's arm was there, and the restraint snapped closed over his wrist. With all his limbs secured, the helmet apparatus descended and locked itself around Manieri's head.
"Hey! Don't mess with that!" Dr. Gardner poked his head out from beneath the gurney.
He hadn't seemed to care much about his employer's plight, but his concern that someone might misuse his invention was enough to bring the researcher out of hiding.
"What do these levers do?" Giovanni asked, studying the control panel beside the machine.
"I'm serious, this is a very delicate and potentially dangerous piece of equipment." A sheen of sweat covered Dr. Gardner's face.
"Don't let him touch anything!" The helmet muffled Manieri's voice, but Giovanni heard a distinct note of panic.
Giovanni hesitated. Something terrible might happen to Manieri if he flipped the levers, perhaps something so terrible even Manieri didn't deserve it. After a moment's consideration, Giovanni decided it was a risk he was willing to take and threw all the levers into the upright position. Manieri let out a howl of pain.
"What have you done?" Dr. Gardner's terror was almost palpable.
Giovanni shrugged. "I don't know. You're supposed to be the expert. What's it doing to him?"
"You've transferred every memory we ever stored in the computer into his brain!" Dr. Gardner tried to run toward the machine, but Giovanni grabbed him by the collar of his lab coat before he could get to it.
"So? It's all his own memories anyway, right?"
"It's not only his memories. There are others in the database. We recorded the brains of all the clones we created… right up until their final moments, for research purposes. Some of those clones were subjects of… some rather traumatic experiments, let's just say."
As the implication of Dr. Gardner's words sank in, Giovanni didn't feel the least bit sorry for whatever the machine's effects would be.
"What will having all those memories imprinted in his brain at once do to him?"
"I don't know!" Dr. Gardner raised his voice. "Why would we have tried that before? There's no good reason to do that!"
Manieri screamed again, and the lights on the control panel flickered and went out. The machine's restraints snapped open, and the helmet lifted off of Manieri's head. He slumped back in the chair, his eyes closed.
"Well, he's still breathing," Giovanni said in an effort to cheer up Dr. Gardner.
The researcher approached his boss and placed two fingers on his throat to check his pulse.
A rustling sound came from the back of the lab, and Giovanni whirled around. Manieri's clone, who had been lying in a forgotten heap near the tanks, was conscious and on its feet. In fact, the clone looked much better than the original, who was pale and limp in the chair. It had Giovanni and Dr. Gardner fixed in a blank, vacant stare. Giovanni cleared his throat to get Dr. Gardner's attention and pointed to the clone.
"Interesting." Dr. Gardner paused his examination of Manieri. "I wouldn't have thought it was ready to leave its tank yet."
"Why is it just standing there?" Giovanni asked, unnerved by the clone's empty expression.
"It doesn't know how to do much else yet. We haven't imprinted any knowledge into its brain, so you can think of it as an empty shell that's simply running on instinct." Dr. Gardner seemed unperturbed by the clone's presence.
Giovanni still found the clone unsettling, but Dr. Gardner was right. It was no threat. He turned his attention back to the real Manieri, who had started to stir.
"Mr. Manieri?" Dr. Gardner prodded his boss.
Manieri let out a low groan, and after a few moments, his eyes fluttered open. His gaze shifted from Giovanni to Dr. Gardner, and he began to tremble. His face was still pale, and his golden eyes were wide with terror.
"How are you feeling, Mr. Manieri?" Dr. Gardner asked.
Manieri bolted upright. Giovanni steeled himself for another fight, but Manieri only grabbed Dr. Gardner's hand.
"Dr. Gardner, you have to help me," Manieri whispered.
"Help you?"
"Yes, he's going to kill me," Manieri replied, his tone pleading. "He said I'm not good enough. He said I'm a failure!"
Before Dr. Gardner could ask what he was talking about, Manieri let out a terrified shriek. His gaze fixed on something over Giovanni's shoulder. Giovanni realized he was staring at his own clone.
Dr. Gardner heaved a sigh. "He thinks he's one of the unsuccessful clones, and he thinks the clone is the real Manieri. He's lost his mind."
"Don't let him kill me!" Manieri screeched.
"No one's going to kill you," Dr. Gardner said soothingly. "Why don't you sit down again? You'll feel better if you rest."
"No! It's a trick!" Manieri lurched past them and threw himself on the ground at his clone's feet. "Please, you don't need to kill me. I can learn to be a good heir, I promise!"
The clone stared down at Manieri, obviously not comprehending any of what was happening. After a few seconds, Manieri seemed to take the clone's silence as a rejection of his plea for mercy. He staggered to his feet.
"So you think you get to decide who lives and who dies?" he shouted at the clone. "You can try to kill me, but I'll destroy you first. Even if I die in the process, I'll make sure you can never create another clone to torture!"
With that, Manieri fled from the laboratory. Giovanni didn't bother trying to stop him.
"Well, that seems to have solved at least a few problems," Giovanni remarked.
"You think this is a good thing?" Dr. Gardner's voice was high-pitched.
"Sure. No one will want to follow him anymore if he's trying to lead Team Rocket from the loony bin. You said you wanted to leave anyway, so now you can find a different job, maybe one with less questionable applications of your talent. I'll keep you in mind if I need a morally deficient scientist for something, but I think I'll be taking Team Rocket in a different direction. All in all, I'd say we're both coming out ahead here." Giovanni started toward the exit.
"Did you hear what he said? He's going to make sure we can never create another clone."
"I heard him, and to be honest, I think that's for the best," Giovanni said with a twinge of annoyance. His work here was finished, and the fate of Dr. Gardner's research was none of his concern.
"Mr. Manieri believes he's a clone, but many of his own memories should be intact. He could be heading to the toxilite tanks."
"Toxilite?" Giovanni didn't know what that was, but the way Dr. Gardner said the word filled him with foreboding.
"You know, weaponized gas extracted from poison type Pokemon. Did you see the pod in the main laboratory where we keep the Koffing? We've been experimenting with distilling the toxins from their poison gas attack into a highly lethal chemical weapon."
Giovanni gave an exasperated sigh. "How many unethical experiments are you people working on? Haven't you ever heard of specialization?"
"I didn't decide which experiments were on the agenda," Dr. Gardner said defensively. "Besides, Mr. Manieri said we needed to have poison gas on hand for safety reasons in case any of the cloning experiments got out of control."
The official reasoning for the poison gas reserves was grim enough, but Giovanni suspected it wasn't the full story. With one "accident" in the lab, Manieri would have an easy way to dispose of any witnesses to his criminal activity.
"All right, how much toxilite does he have?" Giovanni asked, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. He should have known Manieri's loss of mental faculties was too good to be true.
"There are about five and a half tanks, and if they were all deployed at once, that would be…" Dr. Gardner fell silent for a moment, running calculations in his head. "That would be enough to destroy every life form in the headquarters and the surrounding area."