Chapter Nineteen – Moonlight, Electric Night
Evelina
Eve's boat rocked gently on the ocean waves. The atmosphere would be quite peaceful, if it weren't for the damn wingull. There was one sitting in the bow with a trumpet for a beak, madly tootling a jazzy tune with a lot of bum notes.
"Hey, wake up," it said in Josh's voice.
Eve awoke to Josh shaking her. The train slowed as it pulled into the station. She hauled herself up off his chest, yawned expansively, and tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes.
"Now arriving at, Goldenrod Royal Station. Time of arrival, eleven fifty-seven pee-em."
They swung on their backpacks and headed for the doors as the train pulled up to the station. Eve was beginning to get that tired, lived-in feeling from wearing the same clothes for fifteen hours. Josh was trying to massage his own shoulder.
"How long was I asleep?" Eve asked him, stepping out onto the chilly platform. A crowd of people pushed past to board just as a crowd of people pushed past to disembark.
"About half an hour," Josh replied. "I don't mind."
Goldenrod Royal Station was as busy at midnight as Cherrygrove Central was at midday. The huge main concourse buzzed with activity - people hurrying down the escalators to the platforms, clustering around the departure boards, queuing up in front of the ticket windows. The station itself was well over a hundred years old, a stately red-brick building in the grandiose Neo-Gothic style. From outside the station, Eve surveyed the city with curious eyes, all tiredness forgotten. Goldenrod City was big, bright, vibrant, a skyline of skyscrapers and electric constellations. The crescent moon, thin and sharp as a nail paring, peeped out from between the towers. Behind them, the antique clock set above the station's main entrance clanged out quarter-past midnight.
Since it was late, Josh let Fionn out of her Love Ball for a while. The station was fronted by an airy plaza, with an equally wide flight of steps down to a second plaza; from there a second flight turned right and descended to street level. Fionn zigzagged around aimlessly, randomly fading in and out of sight. Occasionally she tried to sneak up on someone to scream at them – Josh snapped at her each time, and she desisted sulkily.
They headed north along Broad Street towards the metro station, passing by bars and late night bistros. The street at midnight was lively, bustling. Eve skirted a clowder of drunk girls wearing cat ears – one of them hissed at her – and automatically nodded to a Jenny on duty. She resisted the temptation to check out a jazz club, the cool sounds of a saxophone curling out into the street. She looked about the street again – bars, bistros, a cinema, love hotel, restaurants – where the hell is that metro station?
"Josh, you've got a better head for direction. Which -"
Josh had disappeared. She found him about thirty yards back, enchanted by a busking violinist. The girl had next to no charisma; Eve had walked past the first time without noticing her. Ah, but the the music … the liquid music emanating from her violin lilted like birdsong, high sweet notes rippling down and back to a soaring height, like a shower of sound with the sudden energy of a spring rain. For some reason Eve was reminded of green fields beneath blue skies, on long, hot August afternoons.
Fionn was snuggled down in her trainer's arms, just as captivated as he was, watching the violin with wide, childish eyes. The last few slow, sweet notes faded into the buzz of the street.
Like he was waking up from a dream, Josh drew out his wallet and threw a ten dollar note into the girl's violin case. She looked at him like she was simultaneously surprised she had an audience and astonished that she got such a large tip.
"A damn near perfect performance of The Lark Ascending," Josh explained.
"Well, at least that was a courteous line, you rake," she said sceptically.
"It's never a line with him," Eve said, winking at him.
The girl gave Josh a sidelong look with shrewd, electric green eyes. "I think I'll believe that," she said with a shy giggle. "I take requests?"
"Clair de Lune?" Josh suggested.
"A romantic, I see. I like that quality in a man …"
"You were so in," Eve teased later, as they walked on down the street. "Are you sure you don't want to do her?"
"Aren't you supportive – Fionn!" he yelled. His misdreavus pulled a face and slunk away from the person she was about to startle. "Return, you. Learn to behave yourself."
"I'm hungry," Eve announced.
"Sleep and eat," Josh said. "Simple creature, aren't you Eevee?"
"Oh, shut up," Eve said. "Come on, let's find something to eat."
"I think I can smell something grilling over there," Josh said. On the other side of the street there was a small square, bounded on one side by a church, and serendipitously by the metro station on the other. There was a food stand set up on the square, the temporary kind with rows of tall stools down the sides.
Eve dumped her backpack by a stool and hopped up, attracted by the inviting smell of grilling meat. Opposite, the local priest looked up from his gammon steak and gave them a friendly nod. Josh nodded back as he sat down.
"What can I get you," asked the stall cook, a middle-aged black man with skin like old leather and a cigarette-roughened voice.
"What've you got?" Eve replied.
"Best steak 'n' eggs in Gol'unrod. Five dollars."
"Sounds good."
"Make that two," Josh said.
"You fellas just arrived?" the cook asked. "How'd you like 'em?"
"Medium rare. What gave us away?" Eve said sardonically.
"Medium, nice and pink."
The cook laughed a sandpapery, old man laugh. "Little more feisty than the gals in the Centre," he stated. "Eggs?"
"Half hard, half soft. Eve has hers runny," Josh broke in. Eve scowled at him out of habit. "You here every night?" he continued.
"Not from Friday," the cook replied, cracking eggs into a skillet. "Got me a spot at the Park for the festival. How 'bout a beer to send it down."
"Couple of Anistars," Eve said. "What festival is this?"
To Eve's delight it transpired that they'd arrived in time for the annual Hoenn Festival. The Festival was to be held in National Park over the next week – a week of battles, games, dances and fireworks. The cook handed over their steaks and shamelessly lit a cigarette. "Enjoy 'em, fellas. So how's it goin' now Reverend …"
Eve hacked off a large chunk of meat and looked up at the metro station on the other side of the square. There was a digital bulletin board beneath the station name plate, displaying the latest departure times. On the main lines the Goldenrod L ran nearly twenty-four hours a day – as she watched an L-train crossed the road on an elevated track and entered the station. She savoured the mouthful of steak for a moment and made a contented little noise. Warm steak, rich yolk, cold beer, oh my, she thought, watching Josh trimming away fat.
"So. Where are we staying, city girl," he asked.
"The great Millennium Centre," Eve declared. "Largest single Pokémon Centre in the Empire."
"Millennium Centre," Josh repeated. "Why that behemoth?"
Eve flapped a hand vaguely in a 'In a minute' kind of way, and applied herself zealously to her steak for a while. "Because, dear Josh, of two reasons. One, Millennium Centre has some twin rooms, so we'll have privacy from other trainers. And two, Millennium Centre is big. Too big and too busy for any Joy to have the time to keep tabs on us."
Josh carefully excised a yolk from the surrounding white. "Cunning girl," he said, and popped the yolk into his mouth, whole and unbroken. "Rush of yolk all at once. Glorious," he said indistinctly.
"Don't you forget it. And that's heresy. Yolk on steak is the one true dinner."
Goldenrod City never really slept. On Penrose Street, on the north side of Trinity Bridge, the lights were on and the doors open at Millennium Centre. The buildings weren't quite so high here, merely looming instead of towering. Many of them were ageing, grandiose edifices interspersed with contemporary developments – the newly renovated metro station, the apartment blocks down by the river, Millennium Centre.
Eve and Josh weren't the only trainers heading to the Centre at this time of night. Not all of them were sober; some drunken teenager kept hitting on her, apparently under the belief that obstinacy was charming. After the third ignored brush-off, Eve saw red. His friends took umbrage to that and released their pokémon – a mankey and a gastly. For once Josh was quicker on the draw with Fionn and defeated them both handily.
"I'm surprised they backed down so easily," he said afterwards, cuddling a happy misdreavus to his cheek.
Probably because they saw the six inch knife you keep in your jacket, thought Eve, but she said nothing.
'Behemoth' was a pretty good adjective to attach to Millennium Centre; a tall, brick-shaped building, the goose grey façade and distinctive red roof standing out from the buildings to either side. About a third of the way up, a huge digital billboard displayed a Centre bulletin, in short summarising how busy the Centre was. It also showed the names of the nurses in residence. Dr Jocasta Joy MPD, primary. Esmeralda Joy, secondary. Edith Joy, resident surgeon.
Two sets of double automatic doors formed the main entrance, surmounted by a P-and-Poké Ball stencil design. Inside, the atrium was an airy, two storey tall space. Superlatives attached themselves easily to Millennium Centre. To Eve's eyes it was very much like home, but built to a much grander scale – the colour scheme was the familiar eggshell white walls and pale yellow flooring, red counters and fittings, a long front desk at the far side beneath another bulletin board.
Eve recognised both the Joys on duty. There wasn't a Joy in Johto who wouldn't know Edith by sight, the surgeon-in-residence at the second most prestigious Pokémon Centre in the region. The other Joy was unfortunately familiar as well – she wasn't yet a full nurse, instead wearing the sleeveless pink dress of an orderly. A senior orderly. Riley had a slight superior smirk on her face, the little bitch.
Riley wasn't a Goldenrod girl. She was from New Barkshire; she and Eve often met at family gatherings. Riley loved to know things, which meant that she was stubbornly studious, but also highly arrogant and nosy. Landing an internship here had done nothing to improve her personality.
An escalator off to the right led up to a glass-fronted balcony that ran around three sides of the atrium. Opposite, on the left, was the doorway through to the cafeteria. At the back wall was the sign-in desk, and the way to their room for the next few weeks.
"I take it you haven't run into Riley this morning," Aunt Immey said.
"And why do you say that?"
"Because you're still in a fairly good mood."
Immey giggled at Eve's automatic exasperated sigh. Morning had brought a late breakfast in the cafeteria; for Eve, it had also brought a call from home. She was seated at one of the video phone bays at the back of the cafeteria, trying to finish an almond croissant and talk at the same time.
"So, do you have any advice?" Eve said, trying to steer the conversation back on track.
"No," Immey said bluntly. "You're good enough."
"But -"
"But me no buts," Immey gave her an encouraging smile. "You go and be the first Joy to win that tourney."
A wistful look crossed her face. "I met Pemberton once, at University. She could sweep you up into the way she saw things. You felt like you could defy stereotypes, too."
Eve said nothing, her mouth full of pastry. She knew the tourney history. Forty years ago there were hardly any elite women pokémon trainers. It never occurred to most girls that they could be elite pokémon trainers. Then Victoria Pemberton smashed the stereotype, and became the first woman to be crowned Imperial Champion, the winner of all four regional tournaments; Johto, Kanto, Hoenn, Sinnoh. After she'd attained the title Pemberton established the Tigerlily Tourney to pass on her determination and verve.
"Can you mail me my laptop?" Eve said. "I'm going to need it."
"Yes. Provided you introduce me. I'm not going to bite him!" Immey gently mocked. Eve narrowed her eyes sceptically. Her aunt's face was a picture of innocence. Immey's by far the least gossipy, I suppose.
Josh was hovering just out of earshot, working his way down a mug of that horrible battery-acid coffee he liked. She beckoned him over with the stub of her croissant. Josh gave the phone's screen a wary look – Eve belatedly remembered that he still had trouble telling her relatives apart, even out of uniform.
"This is my Aunt Immey," Eve said quickly.
"Oh! Dr Joy," Josh said amicably. "I have a copy of your book."
"I hope it's been useful," Immey said sweetly. Her voice suddenly turned cold and sharp, "Are you trying to fuck my niece?"
"Auntie!" Eve scolded, over the spluttering of Josh choking on his coffee and her aunt's delighted laughter.
"I … that is …" Josh managed between coughs.
Immey subsided, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. "Oh, relax!" she told him. "I know what you did in the Ilex Deepwoods."
Josh rounded on Eve in annoyance. "I told Mum. To try and get her off your back," she said defensively.
"That's not a story to be ashamed of," Immey said. "A young man who can see past cute titties, that's quite rare."
Josh went icily quiet for a moment. "Well, I think I could do with another coffee. Pleased to meet you, Dr Joy."
"He's got you pegged," Eve said, watching him walk away.
"Spoiled all my fun," Immey said mildly. "So what are you going to do in the Sunshine City?"
"Today? We're going to the shrine in a while. Then there's the Hoenn Festival next week."
"Mmn. One small shred of advice, then. Move Tutors! You need to diversify," Immey gave her one of her shrewd looks. "You still haven't said who your tourney partner is."
"No, I haven't," Eve said innocently. "Leave it alone, Aunty."
The Great Shrine of Rhia Victoria lay screened off from the road by an evergreen cypress hedge. The shrine gate pierced the green wall on the southern side. Auxiliary shrines dedicated to Rhia's Fourteen Followers lined the approach to the drum-shaped oratory, the elegantly simple brick dome peering up over the trees. Eve bowed at the shrine gate. They were well acquainted, Eve having visited her shrine in Cherrygrove City many times, but Rhia of Victory was a proud spirit, and prickly about her honour.
Josh didn't bother bowing. He never did.
"Hey Josh!" she called, jogging to catch up. "I've been wondering about something."
"Hm."
"What changed your mind?"
"I'm not sure," Josh said after a moment's thought. "I think it was when you started trying to out-cheer the crowd during my Gym battle. Besides … I know what it's like. To want to prove a point."
Inside the oratory, the circular hall was dominated by a marble statue of Rhia Victoria – naked in contempt for the weapons of the enemy, staring defiantly up at the foe. Rhia of Victory needed no armour. In both hands she held an iron spear, aimed squarely at the heart of her imaginary foe.
Eve paid her respects to Rhia, leaving a fairly large offering this time. I'm only asking for an edge. Just an edge. Afterwards she bought a charm to hang from her gilet zipper, just in case.
Josh wasn't lurking by the entrance like she thought he would be. He was confronting Rhia's statue, looking blackly up at her like she'd personally insulted him. Oh, no. Please don't annoy her. The set of his jawline suggested he was gritting his teeth. To her surprise, Josh bowed – stiffly and none too deeply, but bowed nonetheless. He prayed for a while, still with a black look on his face. It occurred to Eve that she'd never seen him so much as nod at a roadside hokora, much less pray to a spirit of any kind.
"You ready?" Josh said with forced insouciance.
"I've … never seen you pray before," Eve said.
"I don't usually," he said evasively. "I didn't do it for me."