CHAPTER 4: The New Deal
"I am you," the shadow whispered.
Aden took a step backward, but his feet found only open air. He found himself back in the void, floating before the creature.
"You're not," Aden shot back. "Like I said yesterday, this is only a temporary deal. Once Elena's treatments are paid, you're getting out of my head."
"Ah, but it's not that simple. You cannot get something for nothing. There will come a time in the future when you will have to pay a price for the help I have given you."
"What the heck does that mean?"
Again, Aden tried to take a step back, and again, his feet hit only empty air.
"Aden! Wake up!"
His eyes opened, and he saw the PAD hovering above him.
"I detected that your heart rate was abnormally high," the machine announced.
"Yeah, thanks for that," Aden replied.
He sat up, and the pain returned like a knife at the base of his skull. After yesterday's incident, however, he had the foresight to relocate the bottle to his bedside stand. He tipped it back and felt the cool pills slide over his parched tongue. The PAD simply stared blankly at him with its one eye, no doubt calculating how many years he had lost from taking the medication.
"I think I'll go back to visit her," he said mostly to himself.
"Who is this 'her?'" the PAD droned. "Are you meaning to tell me that you have found a desirable female-"
"My sister, you idiot. Elena. Don't you remember her?"
"I remember you talking about her. It is just that the word 'her' is applicable to nearly half of the human race. You must be more specific."
Aden sighed.
"Of course I must."
After getting dressed with the help of his PAD, he sat down on the corner of his bed, hands folded, head stooped. He drew in a deep breath, then spoke to the PAD:
"Call Elena."
"Calling Elena."
For a moment, they sat in silence. Then, finally, a voice emanated from the PAD in little more than a whisper:
"Hello?"
"Hey sis, it's me."
"Oh, Aden," she said, voice strengthening upon recognizing him. "What's up?"
"I'm up in Vaineo for work that I just finished up yesterday. I'm going to be off for a while now. Did you get the two million I sent you?"
"Yep."
"How long do you think it will last?"
There was a pause. Aden held his breath.
"Three months, maybe four."
He breathed a sigh of relief. The Guy had put his maximum time of unemployment at two months.
"That's good. And how are you doing?"
"Alright. The scan results came back yesterday. The doctors say it isn't spreading, and it actually shrunk a little."
Aden smiled.
"That's awesome. Look, I'm going to be back in Centrium. I'll see you soon."
"I'd really like that."
"Great, I'm headed out now. I'll call you once I get in. You just hang in there."
"I will. Talk to you later."
"Okay, love you."
"You too, bye."
The call was cut off by a click. Aden stood and paced around the room.
"At least it hasn't grown, right?" he said.
"If I could see the results of that scan, I may be able to perform a basic calculation on the probability of-"
"I don't want your calculations. The main thing is that it looks good."
"Yes, on the surface, it does appear promising," the PAD conceded.
Aden stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby, PAD at his side and a key in his hand. The Growlithe was at his feet again, looking up to him for affection.
"You checking out today?"
The kid standing in front of him wore the same baggy purple t-shirt he had on yesterday.
"I am," he said with a grin.
The kid raised his eyebrows.
"You smiling man," he said. "Something real good must've happened, yeah?"
Aden shrugged.
"You could say that. Do I turn in the keys to you?"
"Naw, I'm on lunch break," he said, motioning to another man seated behind the front desk. "You probably hungry too. Wanna follow me to the underground, get something to eat? It's only a block out."
"Sure, why not?"
The kid pulled out a Poké Ball, and with a flash of red light, the Growlithe disappeared.
"Before the war, it was the subway," the kid explained as they turned the corner. "Now it's the only cool place without AC."
Aden caught sight of a glass structure on the next block enclosing a stairway that led into the ground. At a glance, the structure seemed to have fared the war well. Only a few of the panes were punched out. As promised, as they descended the stairway, the air temperature dropped substantially, so much so that Aden's breath appeared before him as a cloud of mist. Bolted to the ceiling at regular intervals were circular, caged lights with a yellow glow.
When they neared the bottom, they heard the murmur of a crowd.
"It gets real packed down here," the kid said, words echoing off of the concrete walls. "My buddy hates it, so that's why he's in his ball. You just follow me. I know a good place."
Sure enough, Aden found himself weaving through a mass of people that flowed through the hall like a viscous liquid. On either side were recesses in the walls, forming the skeleton of what was likely an old shopping mall. Packed within them were vendors selling a whole multitude of goods. In one, Aden saw a shelf full of Master Balls. Not the real ones, of course, but the kind created by putting stickers on Poké Balls. Although every trainer knew that the title of Pokémon master should be preceded by "self-proclaimed," it didn't stop them from pretending. Farther down, a fish tank that took up an entire wall was crammed with Feebas. Whether they were for intended for training or eating, he could not discern.
Bits and pieces of the negotiations flew over his head:
"For you it'll be fifty!"
"Too high, try thirty!"
"Forty's the lowest I'll go!"
He was thankful that the Guy handled the business-end of their transactions. Being from Centrium, high population-density was not something unfamiliar to him. However, being underground in a narrow concrete tube with hundreds of other humans was definitely a new experience. A part of him feared that the whole thing would collapse, and he would be stuck underground forever. He hoped that at some point he would see the sun again.
His guide stopped in front of one of the stalls. From within, pots boiled and steam crept upward. Aden smelled something that was a mix of pasta and meat. Though what kind of meat, he could not say.
"I'll have the usual," the kid yelled to the woman in a stained apron, standing at a table that served as a makeshift counter. "Same for my friend here, too."
"What's the usual?" Aden wrinkled his brow and asked the kid.
"It's not bad. You'll see."
After being given their food, they pushed their way into a larger room at the end of the tube with tables and chairs. Down there, the crowd had thinned out, and Aden could actually hear himself thinking. They located an empty table and sat down.
As promised, the usual was not too bad. It consisted of a Styrofoam bowl filled with noodles of various shapes and sizes. Some were long and round. Others were short and flat. Still others were starchy lumps that resembled letters of the alphabet. Piled on top of them was a mountain of tan chunks of meat. Aden couldn't tell where it came from, but it appeared neither rotten nor bloody.
The PAD hovered over his bowl, flicking its single eyeball back and forth.
"I detect no signs of known toxins," it droned. "And from what I observed at the establishment, all relevant health code regulations were followed during its preparation."
"Thanks man," the kid replied. "Good to know you got all our backs."
"You must be mistaken," the PAD replied. "I am not a man, and you two have a vertebral column, but I do not."
The kid clapped his hands and giggled.
"This guy's a comedian!" he exclaimed.
"You get used to it," Aden said.
He looked down at his bowl.
"Reminds me of the Centrium special," he said.
"The what?"
"It's something from back home," he replied. "You take fries and throw every edible thing on them that you can find."
"Oh."
The kid's glance flicked down to Aden's waist where he was sure his weapon was stored, beneath his coat.
"Saw your gun the other day," he commented. "Not the kinda thing you see on the law. You do security for the Guy?"
Aden allowed himself a modest smile.
"At times. But I mostly act as a third party for business transactions. When he sells or buys stuff, he has me do the delivering."
"I get you. It's the dangerous kind of stuff that people shoot at you for carrying around."
From the crowd behind the kid, a flicker of movement caught Aden's eye. Aden's gaze snapped to the source. Two hazel eyes stared back him, bordered by a pale face and loose, brown hair. Around her neck was a black band. As far as he could tell, it contained no jewels or precious metals.
Without any warning, an image flashed before Aden's eyes. He saw himself the previous day, in the parking garage, loading the sphere into the back of his bike. His eyes locked with hers for a millisecond before she ducked, melding into the crowd.
The color drained from Aden's face.
"Man, you don't look so good."
Aden rose to his full height and flung the chair aside.
"Thank you for everything. I really need to go now."
He blazed down the streets on his bike, earpiece in and PAD nestled into the cavity above the front wheel.
"You are sure that was a psychic?" the PAD asked.
"Almost one-hundred percent positive," Aden replied.
"You are aware that while psychic Pokémon are uncommon, psychic humans are an enigma? The hallucinations you experienced were more than likely caused by those drugs."
"I saw one in Centrium once at a circus. He did this thing where he would sift through your memories, and as it happened, everything played out before your eyes. He would then tell the crowd specific details about you, never speaking with you once."
"And you tried that?" the PAD asked incredulously.
"Nope, but a friend did. Look, if there's a psychic who singled me out to go through my memories, I want to get out of here as soon as possible. The psychic at the circus could only go through memories. But I've heard stories about ones who can do more than that."
"If you say so. Take a right here, and proceed straight ahead to reach Emory-Centrium Highway south."
As he leaned into the curve, he caught sight of a figure standing in the center of the road.
"Give me a distance on that thing out there," he commanded, voice rising.
"731 meters."
"Visual?"
On his glasses, a green box appeared around the figure. The box grew larger, and he found himself looking at a grainy image.
"Crap."
The hair and eye color were indeterminable through the green hue of the glasses, but she definitely had that band around her neck. Her feet were planted firmly at shoulder-width, and her arms hung by her sides.
"201 meters and closing."
Aden eased his finger off of the accelerator and wrenched the steering column to the left. He drew in a deep breath to steady his shaky nerves. A simple U-turn would have him out of this in an instant. No need to worry. The PAD could then plot an alternate route that didn't involve the woman.
Halfway through the loop, however, his bike came to halt so abrupt that he swore he felt his brain press against the inside front of his skull.
"All systems are functioning at full capacity," the PAD announced. "Something else is holding us back. I cannot eject from the machine."
Aden attempted to push his finger down on the accelerator. But his finger would not budge. That's when he realized it. He was frozen. He tried to swing himself off of the bike, but again, his limbs were locked in place. He was stuck staring straight ahead, at the side of the road. He heard the footsteps approaching perpendicular to his field of vision. In vain, he strained to turn his head to see his assailant.
When he could feel her breathing on him, he heard a swish of fabric and the sound of metal sliding against metal. A blade glowing dull red hovered beneath his throat. His skin burned. This was not a simple sword dug out of a basement. It was an energy sword, an experimental weapon developed by the Fortunan military that cloaked an ordinary blade of steel in a thin sheath of energy for increased offensive capability. He thought that the program had been abandoned years ago due to the prohibitively-heavy battery packs that had to be worn along with the weapon. But if she really was psychic, she wouldn't need those battery packs. Her body could serve as the power source.
He swallowed hard. For a second, he thought that he might die staring at the side of abandoned office building. But then, she spoke:
"Yesterday you handled a sphere."
"That's right," he said, annunciating both syllables as if his life depended on it, because it probably did.
"What was in it?"
"I don't know."
"What was in it?" she repeated, on the verge of shouting.
Meanwhile the blade beneath his neck heated up.
"I swear I don't know. Just based on the shape, I'd guess it was a Poké Ball. If you doubt me, you can go through all of my memories-"
"That would take too long. Where did you take it?"
"To a warehouse in Vaineo, right on the border. It was a pickup point for a guy who bought it from my employer."
"And where did he take it?"
"I don't know. When he left, he headed north into Vaineo. I'd assume he was going to Burlington."
"I believe you."
The heat on his neck receded and Aden heard the blade slip back into its sheath. He breathed a small sigh of relief. He found that he could finally turn his head. He saw his assailant, a woman with long, brown hair that rested on a cloak riddled with patches. Her eyes burned with fire, yet there were also tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, lowering her gaze out of shame. "I hate doing this. It's just that-that I was so close and now-"
"It slipped away," Aden completed. "You're a trainer, and you lost your Pokémon."
Her mouth hung open.
"It was an educated guess," he added quickly, fearful that she would find reason to freeze him again.
"Well, you're right," she said. "I lost him. He was stolen from me, actually. My only one."
"What was he?"
"A Latios."
"A what?" Aden spit out. "Are you serious?"
"Yes," she said.
Aden looked straight into her eyes, searching for any trace of dishonesty. Her gaze did not waver.
The PAD spoke from its cavity on the bike, causing the woman's eyes to widen considerably:
"I am not observing any considerable fluctuations in her breathing rate, heart rate, or body temperature. Based on these data, I predict with 99 percent certainty that she is telling the truth."
"You have a PAD," she said. "So this is your job. You run packages for your boss."
"In a nutshell, yes. I also do security and other errands for him at times."
"Errands such as…" she said, raising her voice.
"If someone or some corporation steals something from him, I take it back."
"So you're good at recovering stolen items."
Aden shrugged.
"I suppose."
"Then I'd like you to work for me."
"Wait, what? You just threatened me, and now you want me to work for you?"
"I know it's sudden, but I'm running low on options."
"Well I'm sorry, but I'm busy," he said.
"I'll pay you more than you're making right now."
"Actually, I'm on break for two months, but I have family stuff to do."
"Family stuff can wait. Here-"
She reached into her coat pocket and produced a hundred dollar bill. Aden pulled his arm back, but she seized it with one hand and forced the bill between the fingers of his clenched fist with her other.
"No," he said.
He moved to give the bill back to her, but she only shoved another into his palm.
"You're just a trainer, right?" he said, squinting at her in amazement. "How did you get so much money? Did you rob a bank or something?"
She pursed her lips.
"Based on my observations, I predict with seventy percent certainty that she has robbed one or more banks," the PAD sputtered.
She shot a death-glare at the machine.
A grin spread across Aden's face.
"So, how many? One? Two? Three?"
She stared at him blankly as he attempted to gauge her reaction.
"I would need more data to answer that question," the PAD said.
Aden finally pocketed the bills.
"Can you pay in credits?" he asked. "I'd like to send some of it back to my family."
This statement injected as much enthusiasm into her as he had ever seen. Her eyes lit up.
"Yes, of course. How does a month for three-million sound?"
Aden took a step backward.
"Ten? Twenty? Thirty?"
"Still not enough data," the PAD said.
She just smiled.
"Do we have a deal?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm afraid we do," he said, drawing in an uneasy breath. "Your name?"
"Sophie."
"Aden."
He held out a hand and he shook it.
"Pleased to meet and deal with you," Aden said. "I've dealt with people who wanted me dead, but never with someone who threatened me openly. What are we doing now?"
"You said that guy was headed north toward Burlington, so we're going to Burlington. We should be able to make it there by tonight, right?"
"I think so. Do you have transportation?"
"I did, but it rolled into Emory on its last leg. Like I said, my options are limited."
"Not a problem," Aden said. "You can just ride with me, I think. It should be able to hold us both, right?" he questioned the PAD.
"How much does she weigh?"
Aden winced.
"70-ish kilos," Sophie fired back without blinking.
"Then it will be sufficient," the PAD said. "On another note, it is a habit of mine to create personal health profiles of all my associates. When we are in a more secure location, I will ask you for more data, Sophie. That way I can give you helpful hints on how to live a healthier, more productive life."
"Um…thank you?"
"You are welcome."
"Just ignore that last bit," Aden said. "His hints actually aren't helpful at all."
"Noted," she said.
She hopped up onto the bike, behind Aden. "Let's get going."