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.
