Chapter Five

Melissa

Our lives had settled into a routine and it seemed nothing could happen to us out here in the middle of nowhere. Then, one night, I was woken by an ear-splitting scream. I fumbled for my light switch and flicked it on to see Marle sitting up in bed, her face covered in sweat.

"Marle, what is it?" I asked. Something told me this had to be another of her visions.

"Melissa," she said between sobs. "Melissa, we've got to get out of here! That Tyler Banks from Alpha Division, he's up to something and I know it's gonna be bad."

I wondered how on Earth we were going to leave. It would take us days to get to the nearest town and we didn't even know which direction it lay in or what we would find when we got there.


Drake

"Lambda Division sends its thanks?" I muttered. "Right! I bet they'll also be sending another request to fix their plumbing in a couple of days!"

Either someone had serious bowel problems or someone was sabotaging the plumbing for no apparent reason. Beta Division's cabins were a long way away and it would take me a while to get back to that part of the compound.

I was the only one in the cabin when the Lambda boys showed up again with their complaints. On the way over there, I didn't feel sleepy at all even though it was quite late at night.

I looked up at the stars, twinkling as always and blissfully oblivious to the turmoil on our planet. then, the tranquillity of the night was shattered by a scream coming from the cabin that housed the female members of Gamma Division. I sprinted that way to investigate.


Melissa

The following evening, we held a meeting, we being the six members of Gamma Division, plus Drake and Kohaku. We were all alarmed to hear that Tyler Banks might be planning something and we needed to think of some way to stop him.

"Tell the staff," suggested Kohaku, who sat stroking her Vulpix as she spoke.

"Let's slip him some poison," supplied Stan. He glowered, leaving his opinion of Tyler in no doubt; he hated the jerk and would dearly love to bring about his downfall.

I shook my head. "No. That won't work. If you were paying attention when Dole was telling the others about their talents, you'll know Tyler's here because he can detect poisons. So he'd know if we tried anything like that."

In the end, we decided to stay at the Location, but to keep a careful eye on Tyler in case he tried anything. If he did, we were going to steal the bus that brought us here and use it to run away, heading to the hills to start our own breakaway community.

Then, someone sabotaged the water supply to our cabins. I found out what they had done when Monica stepped out of the shower - there was a shower in each cabin - with a towel wrapped round her middle and an angry look on her face. "What's going on here?!" she demanded. "The water keeps switching from hot to cold!"

Her guess was as good as mine, but, when I checked the water thermostat, I found that someone had overridden the settings we had on it. And only one person could think of pulling a trick like that. "Tyler," I said darkly. Then I found a note shoved under the door:

Dear Gamma Division
I will rule the Location. If you want your water supply back, you will do as I say. I want all of you to start breeding ASAP . . .

I didn't bother to read the rest of the note. The very idea of being forced into being a child-bearing machine sickened me. I wasn't ready for that kind of thing and nor were Monica and Marle. We were just three teenaged girls thrown together in order to preserve the human race.

That was when my friends and I decided to leave. Under cover of darkness, we and our Pokemon would be out of here and there would be no-one to tell us what to do in the outside world. The rule of law must have collapsed long ago, but life in the Location would be unbearable with Tyler Banks in charge.


Kohaku

I could not believe the demands of this Tyler freak. I have always hated the name Tyler; it seems the very name quivers with the stench of insanity.

I talked to three Pidgeys about spying on Tyler, but, when only two returned and told me of the torture Tyler had put their friend through before killing him, I decided not to jeopardise the lives of any more Pokemon.


Stan

Ben was asking Kohaku if having the surname Tyler made him insane when I walked into the cabin, followed by (well, dragging) a very angry Leon. He was frothing at the mouth.

"What's the matter?" asked Kohaku.

"Nothing," I replied. "Just his: "What happens when I drop the match on the blue touch paper next to the dynamite? Oh shit! That's what!" version of mental instability."

"Is that all?" replied a very nervous Kohaku.

Drake stared at the wall in a worried sort of way; understanding Leon took a great deal of time and effort. Melissa was biting her nails to the cuticle, causing Drake to sigh audibly. Meanwhile, Kohaku kept looking from the window to Drake and Monica tried to wake Leon, who had collapsed moments after I dragged him in.

Ben was having a heated debate with a soft toy named Mr Squiffles and Marle was smiling at me. I was hitting my head on the window and laughing derisively at our twisted version of normality.


Ben

The whole thing was getting to me. By all accounts, I should have been dead. Leon was supposed to have beaten me to a bloody pulp twice, but I could still feel my fingers. The whole world had fallen to bits around us and yet the sun still rose in the morning and everyone acted happy in their own little way.

Mr Squiffles listened, though; he always listened to me and made me feel special. I didn't know who he belonged to, but, as far as I was concerned, he was his own toy and that was the end of it. When he asked me just what the heck I was doing, I hit him hard. Then, I realised it wasn't my poor stuffed colleague but Melissa who had asked. I almost hit her too, but some tiny sliver of sanity stopped my hand just in time.

"Somebody wants to keep me alive as a punishment," I moaned as I stared at the sad, motionless form of Mr Squiffles.


Kohaku

I slowly slipped away from Leon and headed toward the other side of the room, where I found myself standing next to Ben. "Hi," I said.

He looked at me, before looking around. "Do you know you're talking to me?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah," I replied. "Are you . . . all right?" I felt a strong urge to run away very fast and very far.

"Of course. You're actually talking to me and not looking at me like I'm crazy or useless."

"Why would I do that?" I asked him in a nicer voice.

"Because I'm useless," he replied.


Drake

I thought about the proposition again. Things were definitely going to get much worse if Tyler took charge, but would we be any better off out there with no idea where we were? I had suggested finding a way to catch the water and bathe in it later, but Tyler would just find another, more unpleasant, way to get what he wanted. So it might be better to head out after all. I mentally compiled a list of everything we might need for an expedition out of here. We could probably survive just running away without any sort of supplies, but it wouldn't be pleasant.

"Hell, it won't be pleasent anyway," I mused. "Say, Stan, you seen Melissa?"

Stan ceased his assault on the window and looked up. "Er . . . I think she's outside. Why?" he replied.

I was about to mention an escape plan when Blaze (my Arcanine) began to growl and sniff the air. "Blaze, what is it?" I asked, following his gaze out the window just in time to see something pop out of sight.

"You been having any of those bad visions lately?" Stan asked Marle.

"No. Why?" Marle replied.

"Oh, nothing. It's just that someone's lurking outside in a suspicious manner."


Ben

Kohaku tried to reason with me. "You're not useless."

"Yes, I am," I stated flatly. "Anyway, you're not even part of our Division, so how would you know?"

She stared at me critically, trying to think of a counter to my argument. Luckily, she found one. "Well, you wouldn't be here if you were "useless"," she reminded me. "We all have talents, remember?"

Slowly, it dawned on me that she wasn't going to yell at me or call me useless like the others did. This in turn led to my sudden recollection of everything that had gone on since I quit caring all those months ago. The sudden influx of information in my head forced my brain back into its normal routine. I stared at the stuffed toy I had been talking to earlier and realised I was sane again.

"So you can really be use . . ." Kohaku was saying.

I leapt up and stopped her from saying it. "Don't say the U word; it does terrible things to me!"

"You mean "useless"?" was probably the next thing she said. But I had my hand over her mouth so it came out more like: "Mm mmm mm-mm?". I nodded and let her breathe again. "Are you totally insane?!" She looked at me with a worried expression.

"I was, but not any more," I said. "And you helped me get my mind back!"

"I did? How? All I did was . . ."

I hugged her happily because it felt good to have my sanity again.

"Hey, you . . . person! Let go!" Kohaku pulled free and stepped back slightly. "You can be a very scary person."

I would have apologised for my behaviour, had Drake not interrupted us. Well, at least my days of conversing with Mr Squiffles were over, as long as no-one called me "useless" and I vowed never to give them a reason to use that word about me again.


Kohaku

I blinked at the once depressed but now happy guy. He reminded me of someone, but I didn't know who. I was glad I'd made him feel better, though I was still unsure how I did it.

When Drake said someone was lurking outside, I left my thoughts and wandered toward a crack in the wall. I made a soft trilling noise and was rewarded with the sound of a Diglett coming from the soil. "Diglett dig diglett diiiggg diglett dig," I whispered. Roughly translated, this meant, "Look for a suspicious person lurking around and report back."

Hopefully, the Diglett would return quickly and not be suspected.


Melissa

While we were waiting for the Diglett to come back with news, we started making our getaway plans. "Does anyone here know how to drive?" I asked.

"I used to go joyriding a lot back home," replied Stan. "Does that count?"

We had to agree that it was better than nothing so we sneaked into the place where they'd parked the bus and climbed in. Stan sat in the driver's seat and began trying to hotwire the engine, a process which seemed to take a very long time. "Hurry up!" pleaded Marle. "I sense danger! Tyler's on his way over here! He could catch us any moment!"

"I'm hurrying!" Stan retorted. "Engines don't hotwire instantly, you know!"

Just then, the Diglett Kohaku had sent popped up directly outside the bus. Kohaku spoke to it for a few seconds, before turning to the rest of us. "OK," she said. "We should have a head start if we start right away."

"Gotcha!" Stan said as he finished what he was doing and pressed the ignition switch. We all cheered as the engine roared into life and the bus started to move. I looked down at Pidgeotto and Sunflora's Poke Balls and wondered for the umpteenth time just where all this was going to lead us. We were goodness only knew how many miles from the nearest city and there was no way of knowing what we would find when we got there, although we all hoped to find other survivors. But what we did know was that the world we had grown up in was gone; society was in a vacuum between the end of one civilisation and the beginning of the next.

I thought about that note I'd found, still barely able to believe anyone could be so sexist as to declare all females of child-bearing age must have kids whether they wanted them or not. I wanted children one day - I understood the need to repopulate - but I just wasn't ready at the moment.

I looked out the window as Stan drove us away from the Location, recalling the day we arrived there for what we thought would be a year-long social research project. I could hardly believe just how much things had changed since that day. Nothing would ever be the same again, at least not within our lifetimes; it would probably take several decades for society to return to pre-Plague standards, if it ever did.


Stan

As the bus kicked into action, I turned to the rest of the group, cursed diesel engines and drove off up the hill in the foreboding darkness. We slipped past almost all the cabins before coming to the edge of the fenced-in estate. Then, a cry came up from Drake's cabin.

Moments later, an evidently angry and sleep-deprived person grabbed the person doing the shouting by the scruff of the neck and threw him through the door and into the side of our vehicle.

"What the . . .?" someone said.

I spoke up. "Quick! Get him in before he spreads the word!"

Drake jumped out and pulled the boy into the bus. "Grey?" he said when he saw who it was.

"Um, hi," Grey said. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Well . . ."

I clamped my hand over Drake's mouth. "We'll explain later," I told him. "But I think we can trust him."

If only we'd known how wrong we would be. Soon, we'd find out the truth about Grey Kindler; his loyalties were as shady as his name.


Drake

As the bus rumbled through the outskirts of the camp, I began to wonder why we had decided to use it. It was big, chunky and easy to spot. I had stolen a camouflage net to conceal the bus, but it would be no good if the tracks left behind led them right to us. I had little doubt they'd come after us, so I had Megavolt (my Pikachu) do as much sabotage as he could before we left.

I mentally noted that the bus would make an excellent diversion if we were ever found. But, one way or another, we would have to dump it eventually. We had enough supplies and fuel to last a week, but, after that, we were on our own. I checked the gear I had packed and was pleased to find that, in addition to the food and water I had packed, most other survival essentials were already on the bus.

"Security!" Stan growled, distracting me from thoughts of supplies. Ahead were three armed guards.

"Who wants to take care of these goons?" I asked.


Marle

"It would be my pleasure," I said, leaping from the bus and tossing my Poke Balls before I landed.

Umbreon darted forward to distract the the men, as Espeon used her Psychic abilities to tear their suits to shreds. Now, standing there in their boxers, the guards no longer seemed such a threat. But I wanted to wreak a little havoc.

Umbreon proceeded to Bite the men's hindquarters, sending them packing. Just as they reached the relative safety of a nearby building, Espeon levitated them for a moment, before throwing them further than the eye could see.

I turned to my friends with a sadistic grin. "Need anything else?"


Kohaku

I laughed as Marle finished off the dumbfounded guards and checked my pack, mentally noting everything I had.

I hoped the clunky old bus wouldn't give out before the ride was over. Vulpix sat on my lap, licking his front paws. I patted his head and got a hearty: "Vulpix" ("Thanks") in return.

I cringed as we went over a large rock and wondered for the tenth time if allowing Stan to drive was such a good idea. I heard someone comment on how many supplies we had on the bus and in each pack. It looked like we were doing OK for now.

I decided to close my eyes so that, if nothing else, I could at least get some rest. But, just as I closed my eyes, I felt a sudden jolt and was thrown forward. The bus had stopped.