This chapter took a while; sorry about that. At least it's up though, right? Thanks to all the people who have been reviewing. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to write, but I always say that don't I. Well, anyway, here's the next installment. Happy reading.
Breathe. That's all you have to do. Just keep breathing. Deep breathes. Good, now just keep doing that. It'll be over soon. It'll all be over soon. Then you'll be able to see again. Then you'll be able to hear again, and feel and smell and taste again. Just keep taking deep breathes. See? It's working; the nothingness is fading. You can see some light now. Open your eyes. You can taste the air now. You were so sure that you were dead, weren't you? You thought you were breathing, but you couldn't be certain. You never can tell, until the drug wears off. Your eyes aren't open yet. There, that's good. Now stop shaking; that's a sign of weakness. Don't let them know the drug affected you as bad as it did. Make them think that you can just shake it off. Don't let them know that you'll have nightmares about it for the next week.
Erin sat on the floor of a padded room in a straitjacket. It wasn't the same room that she had been placed in when they first brought her there, and it wasn't her room that she slept in at night. But she had been in this room twice before, and the straitjacket was familiar as well.
Charles Turner, or 'sir', as Erin was required to call him, had a strong sense of irony, and it showed.
As Erin's vision cleared and she stopped shivering, she made out darkened spots on the otherwise spotless jacket. They were the bloodstains from her first meeting with Turner. They had never washed the jacket, and it was always the one they placed her in, when they gave her Iso.
Iso. That was the name of the drug that was given to her a punishment for not completing a Task. The drug that relieved her of all senses and left her in a nauseating limbo in her mind where she didn't know if she was dead or alive. Even the name was ironic. It was short for isolation, which is how it left the person on the wrong end of the needle: isolated.
Every time they gave it to her, she just kept telling herself to breathe, but she was never aware if it was working until the Iso wore off.
Erin was sweating heavily and her mouth hung open as she gasped for air. Three months. She had been held there for three months. There were no windows that she was aware of, and she hadn't seen a clock once since her arrival. The only way she was aware of the passing of time was when they assigned her a Task, which was once a month.
The first time, Erin thought it was just another training exercise, but only for a few seconds. Then she understood that they were completely serious. She shuddered at the thought of it. "Kill it," they had told her. "It has served its purpose." Then they handed her a gun.
She had punched the man. She punched him and kicked him and beat him so furiously that the gun was immediately knocked from his hand and he had no time to block a single attack. During the first month that Turner had been training her, her speed at hand-to-hand combat had almost doubled. Soon though, she halted her assault, realizing that she was acting no better that the rest of the agents at the Agency. She looked past the man, who had back stepped a considerable distance once allowed, to the pitiful withered excuse for a pokemon behind him. It had done all the good it was capable of to the Agency, and now they were disposing of it. They wanted her to dispose of it. She would not.
Erin turned to leave and stopped short. Turner was there in the doorway, watching her with a smile. She growled and tried to walk past him, but he blocked the exit. "I don't think so, Miss Erin. You have been assigned a Task and have failed. There are consequences for failure."
Then she had been given Iso. The next two Tasks she was assigned were different, but no less ruthless. She had refused to do any of them, even when she was aware of the consequences.
But those were the only times she disobeyed. Any other time and her pokemon would be punished. This was the only time that she was penalized. She told herself she could live with it. But it was slowly eating at her sanity.
The door opened. "Come along, Miss." Another man in a white uniform. There were only two people in this facility: agents and scientists. Agents, such as Erin, wore black, and scientists, such as this man, sometimes referred to as doctors, wore white. Erin stood up, albeit shakily. He released her from her restraints, which would still not be washed, and led her down the many winding hallways to her room.
She sat on the bed and stared at the floor. Then she rested her head on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Damn. If the Iso didn't kill her, then her routine surely would. Every morning, or what Erin assumed was morning, all the lights in her tiny dwelling, which consisted of a bathroom and a bedroom with a bed as the sole piece of furniture, would automatically turn on. This was her signal to get up, get dressed, and walk down the hallway to the mess hall where she and about six others were served something akin to gruel.
Erin was the second youngest agent-in-training, and the only unwilling participant. There was some kid who looked no older than fifteen there as well, who was always full of energy and threats that no one took seriously. Erin hated him directly. She didn't talk to the others and thus they didn't bother her. They simply thought that she wasn't a conversationalist; they never suspected that she was being held there against her will.
After an extremely short meal, Erin split off from the others. She didn't know where they went, but she went to the training room, or more specifically, Turner's training room. Erin was the only one of the group to be personally trained by him, but they were unaware of it.
She trained and trained for hours with little rest and no mercy for wounds from previous training sessions. Erin had more gruel for lunch, but this time she didn't see any of the others. They weren't pushed as hard and ate earlier than her and were then allowed a break. She ate at the end of their break. She saw them again when she passed by their training room on the way to the lab. Or she would, if she bothered to lift her head.
At the lab Erin was trained in the various aspects that there weren't classes for at the academy. She was taught about chemicals and how much of which chemical could do what. She learned about gasses and which were toxic and how to determine the level of toxicity. She already knew that certain pokemon gave off noxious gasses during certain attacks and defenses, but now she learned what those gasses were, how they affected a person or pokemon, and how to determine the strength of the pokemon by how poisonous the gas was. She soaked up everything like a sponge.
After dinner there was more training. She trained until late in the night, after the other agents had gone to bed. Turner was determined to make her the best agent in the Agency. After three months, she most likely was. Now she could almost match Turner in hand-to-hand combat. He still beat her every time, but only almost.
Her door opened. Erin smirked. No, they never did give her time to rest. If she had free time, then she might have time to think, and Turner was too smart for that. Then she might figure out a way to escape.
"Hey, I don't got all day," said Erin's escort from the doorway. "Let's hurry it up."
"Very well," she replied, rising from her bed. From the floor next to her bed Erin picked up a cylindrical rod that was about an inch in diameter and a foot long. Then she followed the agent out the door. Erin didn't understand why Turner still required her to be escorted everywhere within the facility. It wasn't as if she ever had any free time to go exploring anyway. Oh well.
"Good day, Miss Erin," came the voice of Turner from within his training compound. Here her escort left her and she entered. Turner glanced down at the silver weapon in her hand. "No, we will not be sparring with the Bo staff today."
Erin smiled knowingly and placed the weapon by the door. She knew that Turner would have seen that smirk and would now push her extra hard for making him feel inferior, even for an instant. Erin knew that, while Turner could still defeat her when they sparred with no weapons, it was she who was now superior when it came to the Bo staff. After Erin came out the victor three days in a row, Turner decided that they no longer needed to practice with that weapon.
But what a weapon it was. Once an agent was no longer in training and went on field missions, they were always required to carry one. These Bo staffs were created by Turner's scientists, and truly were a marvel of technology. When held in just the precise position in an agent's hand, the foot-long cylinder opened up and stretched almost instantly to roughly five and a half feet. An extremely strong alloy, it could withstand great strength and would not easily melt. Also, it was fused with an experimental rubber, so, not only would the staff be easier to grip, but neither would it conduct electricity. Turner was exceptionally proud of this invention, and resented Erin for being more adept at its use than he.
But he could make her feel his anger. For hours they sparred, and as usual, Erin came out defeated. She knew she would, so it wasn't such a big deal. She pushed herself hard, to the edge of her physical ability, as she did everyday. This way, she would collapse on her bed in an exhausted sleep, and maybe the nightmares wouldn't last as long because of it.
She could only hope.
0000000
Erin heard more than Turner was aware of. During her classes in the lab, she heard a lot of talk from passing groups of scientists. Not much, but enough to know which doors in the rooms she was allowed in led where. And, which always lifted her spirits, she sometimes heard things such as, "That Char's still fighting," and "You think he'd be too weak to fight anymore," and even, "That umbreon almost bit me; tried to come at me right through those bars." Erin always fought with a little more spirit during her next training session.
Even in those exhausted sleeps of hers, where no thoughts except nightmares ever permeated, Erin planned. Over and over in her mind she walked the hallways of the Agency. She would turn every corner that she knew, enter every doorway. And then, when she had walked everywhere she had been, she would stand at the end of a hallway and stare into the blackness beyond, to the areas she had never seen, and imagine what lay in that darkness. From the gathered information, Erin knew that through the left door in one of the lab rooms, and strait through a few more doorways, was where the pokemon were kept. The larger and stronger ones were farther out in areas where they could be monitored according to their specifics and were guarded more heavily.
But she didn't know which way was out. If she did find her pokemon, that would become a problem. Not the only problem, but one of the most time consuming, which was a bad thing.
A few more days. She would only need a few more days. Then Erin would take a risk that could cost all of them their lives.
0000000
"Oof." Erin slammed into the wall and groaned. It had been seven days since her third Task. She was still pushed harder than any of the other agents-in-training, and Turner was still determined to break her will. He thought about going easier on her once she completed a Task.
Turner was unaware that there would never be another Task for either of them.
"You're not trying hard enough," he snapped at her. "Focus!"
But Erin knew that she had done better during this training session than any other. Time was almost up and that was only the third time she had been hit that night. "I am focused," she calmly and coolly stated. Erin had learned quickly that shouting was not a good means to an end. If she had yelled that same line at Turner, then her heart rate would have increased and her breath would have become slightly more irregular. Then Turner would have the upper hand and would have her on the ground, defeated, in a very shout amount of time. This way, her focus never faltered.
The two sparred for a while longer, then Turner finally called for them to stop. He was quite pleased with her advancement as of late. It appeared as though all the emotion she once held had fled her mind. It was shortly after the last Task, he realized. It must have been that recent shot of Iso that finally wore her down. Since then, she had never shown frustration when defeated in training; she would simply rise and try again. He even mentioned her Char the other day, and no anger showed on her face. It was as if she merely no longer cared.
Perfect.
In three weeks, when her next Task date came, Turner was positive that Erin would complete it as composed as she had been battling with him that very night. Turner smiled. He finally had his perfect agent.
He summoned an escort to take Erin back to her room and decided that when she completed a Task he would relieve her of that necessity as well.
"Here you are, little missy," said Erin's escort upon arriving at her dorm. He bowed sarcastically but she didn't respond.
He frowned. He much preferred the first few months when she had arrived and remarks such as that would rile her up and he would laugh. This stoic attitude that she had taken as of late was slightly unnerving and took all the fun out of his sarcasm. As he raised his head and looked into her eyes, his breath caught in his throat. That cold look in her eyes…That look chilled him to his bones. But she was just a kid! He shouldn't be afraid of her.
He twisted around and walked the few steps to the end of the hallway and turned the corner just as the lockdown was initiated. He heard the swish of the girl's door closing and knew she was locked in tight until morning.
Back in her room, Erin smiled for the first time in three months and seven days. It wasn't the smile of joy or happiness that she had experienced while laughing with Ryan, but a sneer of triumph. This place had taken all her joy, but she had learned the art of conquest. Erin had been taught never to engage in battle unless she had a plan.
"Blind fighting leaves the fighter dead," is what Turner had said. "Don't simply rush in, but use stealth to come out on top."
"Fine,' she said out loud. "I'll use stealth." Erin glanced down at the floor of her room, where the wall met the electric door. Or, where the wall would meet the electric door, if there hadn't been a foot long metal cylinder blocking its path. That cylinder was all she owned now, besides the clothes on her back. There was nothing else in her room for her to take.
Erin reached toward the door and wedged her palms beneath it. She pushed with all her might and opened it just enough for her to squeeze though. On her way out, Erin knocked the Bo staff out with her foot and she released her hold, the door shutting quickly behind. She stood there for a few seconds, silently laughing at her audacity. If she were caught, not only would she be given a dosage of Iso that would more than likely kill her, but her pokemon would be harmed as well, perhaps fatally so.
But there was no going back now.
Slowly and with great care, Erin began to walk forward. She went the opposite direction as her escort, knowing that to the left were simply more dorms, training facilities, and the mess hall. To the right was how she would get to the labs, and ultimately the pokemon containment area of the Agency.
There were no cameras in the hallways in this area, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. When the lockdown occurred and the rooms were shut, all the lights were turned off until morning. Had there been any cameras, the only thing to see would have been darkness.
The darkness didn't bother Erin though; she had walked these hallways a myriad of times in her sleep, and she could practically see the walls in her mind. She rested her left hand against the wall anyway, while her right clutched her weapon. One could never be too careful while breaking out of a guarded facility.
Soon, the hallways brightened just a bit, for she was entering the laboratory area of the Agency. There would be cameras in this region because of the assortment of high-tech equipment. But Erin had worked within those doors for three months, and all cameras had their blind spots. She grinned again while she straitened up and hugged the wall. This was fun.
But then her grin faded. Her journey had been easy until now, but not because of any talent on her part. The fact of the matter was that no one walked the halls of the dormitories once the lockdown had been initiated. There had been no one for her to run into, and therefore no inconvenience. This is where it would get tricky.
Next to the entrance, Erin halted and reached for the lock panel on the wall next to it. It was a palm-reader, and only granted access to those whose fingerprints had been programmed in beforehand. Since Erin's were not, she had to improvise. She wedged open the panel and took a peek at the assortment of wires inside, fingered a few, then reached in and yanked them all out. She backed up when sparks flew, but was then able to dart inside the room as the door's power ceased and the locks canceled out.
As she entered, Erin dove forward and rolled to break her fall, eventually coming into a crouch underneath a chrome-covered table. In the middle of the ceiling there was a single camera: the sort that was shaped like a dome for full 360-degree rotation. But it couldn't see strait below, which was how she could determine the direction it was currently pointed.
Since the red 'warning' lights were not yet flashing, Erin assumed that the camera hadn't been pointed at her door. More than likely, it was positioned at one of the other two doors in the room, and that was either a good thing, or a bad thing.
Erin carefully eased herself directly beneath the domed camera, taking a chair with her. She stood on top the chair and examined her quarry. Once more, Erin was lucky, because the camera was currently observing a different door than the one she required. It might not stay that way for long, so Erin moved fast.
She leapt off the chair and darted under a few more tables, careful of the wires connected to the equipment. The doors within the labs opened by a motion sensor. If a scientist had his or her hands full, then it could be hazardous if they were required to stop and open a lock. This only worked in Erin's favor.
She had never been through this door, though. She had an occasional fleeting glance of what lay within whenever someone walked through, but it was the other door that led to her classes. Stealth played a large part in her plan now.
"What was that?" came a voice, and Erin literally stopped breathing.
She had entered this room the same way as the first, and was now crouching beneath another chrome table. This room was long and narrow, and a row of similar tables lined the middle. There were men in this room, three to be exact. Erin could see their shoes and the bottom half of their lab coats. It seemed as though they had heard the door open, but had been too slow to catch her in her swift dive.
But now she was stuck. She couldn't enter the door at the other end of the room or else these scientists would see her and set off the alarm. Damn.
"I don't know…" another voice answered, the owner's feet moving cautiously in her direction.
Erin hastily moved forward. The bars and wires that occasionally blocked her path underneath those tables did not prove an obstacle for her lithe body and did not hinder her momentum.
Only when she reached the other end of the row did Erin stop. The door she had to enter was just in front of her, but it might as well not have been there at all. The scientists shrugged off their earlier surprise once they didn't find anything and had already gone back to work. But they were still in the room, and Erin was still stuck.
Fwoosh.
The door opened. Just like that, her path was clear. Another scientist had set off the motion sensor when he entered the room, carrying a box overloaded with computer parts, and would give her a clear path into the next room once he passed.
"Hey Mike," said the man who had first spoken. "What've they got you doing now?" he said with a laugh.
"First they want me to deliver this box of outdated parts clear across the facility, then I'm supposed to fix the flickering light bulb in that room. It's annoying the heck out of the guys in there. I'll just be glad when I don't have to run errands anymore."
"Yeah," said another. "Sucks being a rookie, huh? Don't sweat it though, maybe, when you're actually allowed to do experiments, you won't get stuck on nightshift like us."
Erin was just getting ready to make a leap for it when something hit the floor in front of her. She looked down. It was one of the parts from the box.
"Woops," said the one she assumed was Mike as he set the box on the table just above her head. He bent down to pick it up. Erin's eyes widened and she thought she might throw up. The man had his hand on top of the part when he noticed that there was a girl dressed in black stooped beneath the table.
"What the…" But that was as far as he got, because he found it rather difficult to say much of anything with a metal pole slammed underneath his chin, a movement that sent him soaring across the floor in the opposite direction.
Erin was out from beneath that table in less than a second, and the first of the remaining three scientists was so stunned to see an agent in a lab after lockdown that he didn't move at all as Erin raced toward him and smacked him upside the head with her staff as if it were a baseball bat.
The other two hadn't moved yet either. Erin, placing the metal rod firmly in her grip, squeezed with just the right amount of pressure and each end shot out instantaneously to the staff's full length.
The sudden movement of Erin's weapon jolted the scientists out of their shock and they both ran to the alarm switch near the door she had entered.
No! She would not allow them to reach it and blow her cover so early in the game. Erin nimbly leapt on top the nearest table and ran atop it to reach her prey on the other side. With another mighty leap she was on the ground and right behind both scientists. Soon, however, she was on top of the scientists as they lay on the floor, unconscious.
Erin stood there for a while, breathing deeply and trying to slow her heart rate. A few more seconds, and one of them would have been close enough to pull the alarm. Then she would have been caught. Then her pokemon would be hurt. She glared at the door that would lead her to the next room. Without a second thought she stepped over the men on the ground, one of them bleeding, but not fatally so, and closed the gap between her and the freedom of the pokemon that lay beyond.
A bulb was on the fritz. That is what the first unconscious scientist had said, that there was a flickering bulb in the next room. But he had also said that there were more people in that room as well. More people to hide from, or more people to bash into the floor? Fate would have to decide that, she guessed. It didn't really matter to her either way, and Erin had to wonder if she should be worried that that thought didn't bother her much.
Erin first pulled the man out of the direct line of sight to anyone who might glance in there when she entered, held her breath, made a wish, and walked through the door, crouching as it opened.
Darkness.
Except for the light streaming in behind her, the room was enveloped in darkness. But she didn't much mind that anymore.
"Gods!" she heard someone yell. The room was lined with shelves, and whoever else was in the room could not directly see Erin, but neither could she see them. "I hate this stupid light! I can't get any work done when it keeps going off like this."
"Mike?" came another voice, from the other side of the room. "That you? Did you bring back a good bulb already?" There was a brief silence as the two waited for a reply that never came. " I know I heard the door open…"
"Great," said the first voice. "Now the doors are turning to shit. Isn't there anything in this stupid building that works right?"
The lights came back on, and Erin frantically looked around for a place to hide. But there was no table or other structure large enough for her to hide under and not be seen.
"Oh, that's good then," said the first voice sarcastically. "And that will work for about five seconds before it goes off again, and then we'll be sitting in the dark once more." Well, he was obviously hyperbolizing, for while the two of them shuffled around in-between the shelves, Erin was holding her breath, waiting for the light to turn off again. Once it did, which seemed eons longer that five seconds, it didn't go off completely, but flickered in and out shadow.
Still, Erin used this to her advantage. The door wasn't directly on the other side of the room, as the others had been, but off to her right on the other wall, near one of the scientists. Erin would have to move carefully if she didn't want to be spotted.
So, she moved only when the shadows did. It was as if she was part of the shadows. The lights went off, she moved; they came back on, she stopped. She only breathed at careful intervals and was wary of stray trash that could cause unwanted sound. The shadows flickered, and she with them.
Flickering shadow… That was the name of the attack that stopped the shiftry during her gym battle. Chasm had performed it beautifully. No! Erin felt her eyes dampen. She could not allow herself to cry, not now. Erin had not cried during the whole time she had been held captive at the Agency. Whenever she had felt sad, she had focused that sadness and used it to fuel the anger and hatred she held toward Turner and what he had done. This was all his fault, and she would make him pay.
Then she could see it. Erin spotted the next door just a few rows beyond her current position. She held her weapon, now retracted, at her side, and listened carefully to determine the whereabouts of the closest scientist. There: the next row over. Once more, Erin was facing a dilemma. This would have been so much easier if no one else was here.
Even if the lights turned off completely, Erin realized that she could not walk through that door. One faulty door might be able to be overlooked, but if the second opened as well, that could not be looked on as a coincidence. These scientists did what they did for a reason; they weren't stupid. They would easily put two and two together and she would be caught. It was a good thing that Erin had just come up with a plan, then.
Quietly, not as quietly as Chasm was capable of, but well enough for a human, Erin slipped up behind the unsuspecting scientist. Completely oblivious to the danger he was currently in, he placed his notes and files on one of the shelves in front of him and stretched his arms, ridding his back of any aches. Suddenly, backaches were the least of his worries. His whole body tensed and his yawn caught in his throat as he felt the tip of a gun between his shoulder blades and an arm, slender but solid, wrapped around his neck.
Of course, Erin wasn't really holding a gun to his back; she didn't even have a gun. She wouldn't be allowed to be trained in firearms until she had completed at least two Tasks, so she didn't even know the correct way to handle the simplest revolver. Erin had placed the end of the retracted Bo staff on the man's back to make it seem as if it were a gun. Granted, it was a bit larger around than a gun would be, but Erin didn't think the scientist would be in a position to judge the size of the barrel at this point.
She leaned forward until her mouth was right beside the frightened man's ear. In a whisper so soft that even he could barely hear, Erin said, "Tell your friend you're going to the bathroom."
In his frightened state, the man couldn't quite understand her intent. He hesitated, which caused Erin to squeeze his neck harder. "Tell him." Erin didn't want to be malignant, but this place had hardened her emotions and now she was in quite a desperate situation. She didn't see another choice other than to make the scientist think his life was in danger. She might knock him unconscious, but Erin would never kill him.
"Uh, hey, uh, I'm gonna' go to the restroom." His voice came out shaky and unsure.
'Great,' thought Erin. 'He'll give himself away for being such a crappy liar.'
The man's friend must have noticed that he didn't sound like himself. "You okay, man? You don't sound that great."
Erin squeezed a little bit, to prod her captive on. "I don't, uh, I don't feel too good."
"Huh, right," said the other, not believing the lie but misunderstanding it for something else. "I'll come and find you once Mike comes back with a new bulb. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you're taking a break."
Erin didn't risk having her prisoner speak again, but simply shoved him ahead of her and though the door. Once beyond, Erin looked around. This room was just a few feet long and wide. She knew where she was.
"Please don't kill me…" the scientist whimpered. Erin released her chokehold and swiftly pressed a pressure point on his shoulder. Immediately he went limp. He was not dead, but neither would the scientist be waking up for another hour or so. His friend would most likely find him before that, but, Erin hoped, not before she was free.
The other door, only a few yards away, had a yellow sign attached to it with the word CAUTION printed in big bold letters at the top. After reading it, Erin nodded, her suspicions confirmed. Beyond this door lay the pokemon containment area. Beyond this door lay Abadon, Chasm, Celeste, Khyt, and a myriad of other pokemon that were being held against their will. Beyond this door lay the only path to freedom from this awful place that Erin knew of.
But, for all the caution she had taken thus far, Erin would have to double it. Guards patrolled these hallways, and they had weapons and the stamina to fight back. Erin could be walking toward her freedom, but she could also be walking to her doom. There was no way to tell.
She took a deep breath to clear her head, and then Erin opened the door.
Not really much to say about this chapter. I didn't like it as much at first, but then I reread it and I think it's fine now. Maybe because I didn't have any pokemon in this chapter. I like writing about the pokemon. Anyway, I hope you liked it. Oh, and if anyone wondered (probably not), about the origin of Soru's name, I got it from Absoru, which is the Japanese name for the Absol. Just a random tidbit there. Now review!