RACHEL IN THE CIPHER LAB

It was several hours later, and Rachel was feeling rather sorry

for herself. Despite her struggles, pleadings, cries, and protestations,

Lovrina and her two peons had taken her from Citidark Island to a

place Rachel had once visited five years ago with the Ashes,

Lawrence, Cyril, Julie and the Cipher fighters Seth and Yuki. It was

the Cipher Shadow Pokémon lab. It had seemed strange to her that

they had chosen a place that was known, but then, why build a new

lab when there was a perfectly good functioning one already in

existence? Obviously, Cipher felt confident enough to risk being

discovered again by returning to their old haunts. Perhaps this would

be their undoing, or maybe not, as she knew the island she'd first

been taken to by the Lugia-like creature wasn't known to anyone that

she knew of as a Cipher base.

Upon their arrival at the lab, Lovrina had ordered Rachel to be

sedated. She wanted her awake but easier to handle, and with the

two peons' help, Lovrina soon had her unable to resist, drugged up to

the eyeballs and strapped down to something resembling a hospital

trolley. Then she had taken cheek lining scrapings, skin swabs, tested

substances on her skin for any reaction, measured her, taken her

pulse and blood pressure, measured her breathing rate. They had X-

rayed her, given her an EEG and recorded the results, and taken

enough blood, it seemed, to bottle-feed a baby vampire. Then they

got her up, and, while she was still feeling woozy, gotten her on a set

of scales and recorded her weight and fat distribution.

"Okay, take her to a pen, and then we can so analyse these and see

what else needs to be done." Lovrina said. "It will be a so different

experience to see if this can be done."

The two had taken Rachel to a holding pen in the lab, and put her in,

locking the door. Rachel remembered these from five years ago too,

although she had been on the other side of the gate. She shook the

gate experimentally, but it wasn't budging. Looking at the sides and

the door, she saw they now reached up to the ceiling and were flush

with the floor. No way out under or over then. She put her hands to

her head and felt in her hair. She always wore a few hairpins, and

female Ash had shown her a few handy tricks with locks that could be

done with hairpins. Unfortunately, it looked like Lovrina was also

familiar with the multi-functionality of hairpins too, for Rachel could

find none, and figured Lovrina must have removed them while setting

her up for the EEG. Rachel said a word she would never have used at

home with the children around, something she'd heard her father use

when he didn't know she was there. Sitting down, she wondered if

she'd get out of this unscathed. Then she sat up, remembering the

old man had said something about "another guest." Knowing that

Lawrence and Julie were somewhere in the Orré Region, Rachel was

convinced that the "other guest" was either Julie…or one of her

children.