Chapter 28

"We need a scapegoat." Neil, Breccia and Tess were crowded around a control module. After spending hours trying to get it up and running, they were tired but confidant.

Breccia took Neil's offer with little enthusiasm. "I don't know if it's even functional." The panel was used during Caleb and Lars' experiments in Verandi. It managed to survive, but was heavily damaged. "Like you guys said, Lars was constantly working on this damn thing. Anything wrong with it has likely been fixed. Considering the attack in Cerulean..." Riker didn't mind her mentioning the attack itself, but was adamant that she keep her mouth shut about WHY the Executives were in Cerulean to begin with.

"We have a chip." Tess insisted. "We could attach it to one of our Pokemon and see how well it works."

Lost in her own thoughts, Breccia failed to notice when her two Lab partners turned their attention to her. She caught their stares and immediately rejected their proposal. "Don't even think about it."

"It'd be a good way to test how well it works-" Neil was interrupted with a glare that shut him up faster than an order ever could.

"NO." Breccia snapped. "Nibs is still healing." She rubbed her eyes. "I would know, because I've been up with him every day this week. I had to grind his pills into yogurt because he keeps spitting them out at me."

Noticing Maddie, who was trying to tend to her new Pokemon, an idea popped into her head. "Maddie, bring Buzz over here."

"Why?" Maddie stood up with Buzz in her arms. "It's not good for anything right now. The last thing I want to do is scramble it's brains." Still out of commission from it's nasty explosion, Buzz was unconscious and unresponsive.

"If the chip works, this is a good way to test it." Neil bargained. "It's all wires, there's nothing there to scramble."

Buzz was placed on the table. Tess was careful when putting the chip in place. "Alright, lets see how this works."

Breccia took the helm, pressing the buttons on the console and grabbing a lever before pulling it down. Buzz opened its eyes, levitating up, as if it was in perfect health. "I'll give Lars credit." She said. "He was a smart man. Too bad he couldn't stop sucking his own dick." For the next couple of minutes, they commanded the Electrode around, turning him in circles. "Well, the good news is, we can replicate the experiment. That's as good as it gets at the moment, but it's something."

Standing near Maddie, watching, Neil paused when he heard his Transceiver ring in his pocket.

"I swear." Tess complained. "You have the worst friggin ring tone."

"I've tried to change it. It won't let me." When he pulled it out of his pocket to check, the Electrode went into spasms.

Twitching, the chip attached to its back began to spark, turning off and causing the Pokemon to slam into the ground.

"What the hell..." Breccia and the others were silent for a moment, as if they were contemplating what had just occurred.

After a quite minute, Maddie spoke up. "...is there something wrong with the panel?"

"It could be anything." Breccia said. "The chip could've been damaged in the fight. One of the executives found it after they subdued the Pokemon it was stuck to." She rubbed her temples. "Maybe if we send the chip and console to Sanchez's lab, they'll have someone more prepared to deal with it. I can fax the blueprints over ahead of time."

Maddie glanced over at Neil as his ringtone went off again. "The devil's chord..."

"I beg your pardon?" Neil was in the process of texting back.

"Your ringtone. It's the devil's chord." She snatched her own Transceiver. "It's the default ringtone."

"Yeah, and it's annoying." Tess said. "I picked a new one the moment I got mine. Neil's is just screwed up."

Walking over to the panel, Maddie helped herself: messing with the buttons and levers until her Electrode came back to life. "The chip itself isn't damaged. It's the frequency of the tritone. From the sounds of it, it's a G with a diminished fifth." Pushing a button on the Transceiver, the noise started up again.

Just like the previous time, the chip shorted and her Pokemon collapsed.

"That doesn't make sense." Breccia was more than happy to have finally found something to combat their adversaries, but she was confused as to why this issue didn't pop up sooner. " When we were in Verandi, Morice was making calls, but he was too far away from Lars and Caleb."

"Unless either one of them was making calls themselves?" Tess asked.

"I suppose...maybe Lars was. Caleb left his Transceiver with Nessa." Breccia contemplated further. "They had their walkies, it's how Caleb and Morice communicated."

"I think the walkies were returned to the Lab." Neil said, racking his brains. "Oh yeah, We were using them the other day, remember? You had me go down into the basement."

"True, but the batteries on the walkies were low-" It suddenly hit her, like a train splattering an unlucky victim across the tracks. Going to the nearest drawer, she jerked the walkies out and tossed one to Tess. "Go to the basement real quick."

"What, why-"

"Just do it." She pointed to Maddie. "Turn the console back on." When her orders were obeyed, she brought the walkie to her mouth and pressed the switch on the side. As soon as she did, a faint, dissonant noise cut through the quiet. This resulted in the Electrode, once again, shorting out and losing consciousness. "A couple of minutes before the Palloswine went nuts, Morice mentioned the batteries on the walkies were going dry. We never had the chance to replace them. They-"

"Emit a frequency when they run low." Maddie said, catching onto her friend's epiphany.

"Lars and Caleb usually turned their Transceivers off when they were out on a job." Neil said. "So even if they had the default ringtone, Lars likely didn't know it's effects."

A wave of relief ran through the four of them. After weeks of stress and sleepless nights, they may have finally found a solution.

Leaning against the panel, Maddie chuckled. " My mother was a pianist. She told me back in mid-evil times, the church'd lob your head off if you were dumb enough to put the Devil's tritone in a hymn. It's not commonly used, even today."

Breccia attached the walkie to one of the belt loops in her jeans."Is there anyway we can make a device that emits the noise, a small one that can fit in a pocket?"

"I can get started on the equations for it." Maddie volunteered. "If Tess and Neil can get some paper so we can start on the blueprints."

"Have Tess get the paper. Neil, I want to contact Sanchez's lab and tell them we made a break through." Breccia threw on her coat. "I have to let Riker know."