Chapter Three: Central Cerulean Public Relations
Sapphire had stopped sleeping. She called what she now did after crashing into her bed night-napping. Generally she would be treated to two to three hours of sleep before she had to put herself back together and rush to the office. This morning she had managed to eat and do her makeup and hair in three minutes and fort-six seconds, which made her feel both a little proud and incredibly depressed. She had tried going into work without makeup once, it had caused her boss to ask if 'The Human Store had run out of whatever makes you look like you're not about to die?' The time she had worn the same outfit two days in a row he had commented, 'If you can't afford five outfits you are lending your loser boyfriend too much money.' And today she had been woken at four-thirty AM by a text from him which contained a speech she should deliver to the barista who got his order wrong yesterday..
Sapphire's boss was the worst person she had ever met; he was one of the firm's founders, notoriously well connected throughout the city, and boorishly confident enough to go by Hank 'The Tank' Harrison. Sapphire's position in the firm boiled down to basically being Hank's pet. And though she knew he was a prick, that he saw her as a lesser being, they actually got on quite well, which was horrifying in its own way.
By the time Sapphire arrived in the office it was already churning with unrested, unhappy, over-caffinated juniors; early twenties to early thirties humans with enough luck and too much ambition. Sapphire stormed through the open floor area where people of her level worked, and headed to Hank's office. She dodged her colleagues, gave her good mornings, and endured the heat of Hank's coffee in its too thin cardboard cup; Hank didn't beleave in insulating sleeves, he said 'They make the coffee look gay, If I wanted a gay drink I'd have you get me tea.'
Before knocking on Hank's door, Sapphire checked herself out in the mirror. Her hair had become a bit of a mess in the wind, but it was really showing its red today, and her green eyes were doing their best despite very rarely closing anymore. She had been a rugby player before moving to the city, and luckily all the running around had stopped her from getting too soft. But her face had always had somewhat soft features. Her outfit today was made up of a shirt she didn't think she needed to iron, but now realised she did. A skirt that was both too short and too big. A jacket that paired with a different skirt. And some very nice black shoes she found in the hall of her apartment building, and smelled only a little bit like piss.
As she knocked on the door Hank shouted from within, "About time! What did you do? Grind each individual bean with-"
"With my butt cheeks, yes, very funny Hank, as funny as it was yesterday, and on my first day."
Hank beckoned his coffee to him. "The classics never age, See? You've only just got into the office, and I've already given you a pearl of wisdom. Go write that in a letter and send it to your mother. Tell her she can suck my dick as thank.,"
As she walked over to his desk, Sapphire still had not gotten used to his size; she wished it didn't, but it scared her a little. His huge blue face and warbling beige double chin seemed to double in size when he opened his mouth. Triple when he laughed, which was constantly - a deep, oil drum, cello in a mineshaft kind of laugh. His eyes bulged like two water balloons ready to burst, which made the aforementioned scene even more intense, as Hank never closed his eyes when he laughed. In fact, Sapphire was unsure if she had ever seen him blink at all. His massive, leathery paws, held machete sized claws, connected to limbs thick as boughs of oak. And then there was his shell; it was hard not to be intimidated by someone who grew his own armour, especially when it came with shoulder mounted cannons.
She wondered how many Blastoise could afford custom tailored suits and how many tailors could make suits that actually flattered their monstrous shape. Probably not many.
Hank 'The Tank' Harrison could.
Hank was already smoking a cigar the size of a small baguette when Sapphire had entered. Now he removed the lid from his litre of boiling black coffee and consumed it as if he were a tequila shot.
Hank moaned and slapped the table, "That should keep me going 'til my coke dealer gets here." He made that joke every morning too.
Taking a huge puff on his cigar, the Blastoise settled into a huge, sadistic grin, "So priority business of the day: the port authority commissioner has walked into a gay bath house with a sign glued to his ass that says 'my hole makes dicks bigger and taste like cheese steaks!'"
"What's he done now?"
"He's eaten one of his employees."
Sapphire froze for a moment, only her eyes able to react, "As in, he ate them out?"
"No Saph, he fucking ate them. A man is dead."
Sapphire rubbed her brow so hard she hurt herself, "And he came to us with this?"
"No, it's on camera."
"What?!"
Hank began to laugh, "Oh yes, my sweet little green horn, its on fucking camera, and its already fucking everywhere. I mean it's bad, really horrible, gruesome, but also you can't look away, you know? It's also, if you think about it, like if you really think about it its hilarious. Honestly Saph, to be real with you for a moment… It's the best thing I've ever seen. I'm gonna be laughing about this all year. But also very bad. Very, very sad and bad."
"I… Hank, I don't know how we're going to spin this," she began, her stomach beginning to turn. "Some things you just can't get away with."
Hank slammed his fist against his desk, splintering the wood. "What did I tell you on your first day; what is the one and only truth in this game?"
Sapphire felt her stomach trying to restrain her tongue. It didn't win. "You can get away with anything."
"That's the fucking attitude! Damn, I love it when you quote me." Hank stood up and began to pace, making a real meal out of his cigar. "So, there's self-defence - it's easy enough to get a doctor on record saying the victim was mentally ill and dangerous."
"Who was the victim?"
"Some dock worker working temp, come over from Johto province. Doesn't matter." Hank scratched his chin, "Could say he was already dead, ol' Commisioner Risktz has a very particular stomach, needs fresh meet, I mean he is a lizard…" the Blastoise put his cigar out and shook his head, "Nah… Oh, right, of course. Temp worker, come over from where, oh Johto, well you know what people from Johto are like. Guy was a terrorist, the commissioner discovered he had violent anti government plans, did what he had to do. Why are we focusing on the one person the commissioner had to kill, let's think of all the people he might have saved because of it. And these horrible prejudice slurs saying the commissioner was eating him; that is in fact a very rare form of martial art studied by certain indigenous Feraligatr communities. And let us not forget the commissioner has presided over the highest exports revenue this city has seen in years, and the lowest known rate of smuggling."
Sapphire started writing down everything Hank said as soon as she heard the word terrorist. She cocked her head to the side and sucked her teethm "Are those numbers true? I'm pretty sure export revenue is down this year,"
Hank scoffed, "Who the fuck cares; do you really think everyone is going go look up export revenue stats? No, they're going to go home, drink a glass of wine, and be glad the commissioner doesn't eat people."
"You're the boss."
"There's a good girl. Now go polish daddy's magic words and get the copy to the commissioner's assistant asap. Oh, and make sure some well spoken quack ends up on the news legitimising the fake martial art we just made up that looks alot like eating someone." Hank took a bottle of scotch from out of his desk and poured himself a glass. "Now fuck off. I need to jack off while watching you all through a crack in the blinds."
"Bye Hank."
"Oh and bring back sushi for lunch. Oh! And call my wife and tell her I won't be home for dinner because I stopped enjoying her company years ago."
"I'll say you have to work late,"
Hank spat out some of his scotch in mock incredulity. "You're going to lie…. to my wife!" The Blastoise grinned, "I really am an excellent teacher. Now seriously fuck off."
"Bye Hank."
Sapphire leaned against the door as she shut it. She did not have the time or ability to unravel what she was doing today, all she needed to do right now was release a little tension from all the screaming thoughts she was suppressing. So she screamed. The other junior staff didn't even turn their heads, but Hank shouted through the door. "Scream on your own dime!"
Sapphire wrote the copy, went over it, called some different quacks and explained to them what indigenous Feraligatr martial arts look like, and then headed out.
Cerulean was a wet and windy city; It smelt like salt and concrete and fish and propane, which she had been told was odorised with fish, making it smell twice as much of fish than anything else.
It was the port. She'd been told that after the war the new government removed hundreds of thousands of tons of earth from the northern edge of the city boundaries to make room. Hank explained that Cerulean port wasn't intended to be a major trading port, it was for ship building and shipping resources mined in Mt Moon and the western mountains. But it didn't stay that way long.
The new government had selected Cerulean to be the centre of the Kanto financial industry, and arguably the financial centre of the whole nation. More money meant bigger appetites, bigger and riskier ventures, more corruption and a higher class of organised criminal. It wasn't long before the port had become a small city unto itself; It was the place where you could find anything, do anything, meet anyone - for a price of course, and the person who set the rates was the port authority commissioner.
Hank had said that every P.A.C had been little more than a thug with a fancy title and a nice big stamp. But Risktz put them all to shame. Hank kept saying he wasn't going to last long, and yet he just kept getting richer and more shameless. Sapphire thought it was just one of those things that keeps getting faster and faster until suddenly it explodes. She hopes there was a camera rolling when Risktz exploded. She had only met him in person once and it was more than enough. He had made her feel like she had gotten into bed with wet socks.
The port was on the entirely opposite side of town from their offices, and Cerulean City had no public transport. You either drove and got in traffic or walked and got rained on. Because if there were two things that happened every day in Cerulean, they were a traffic jam and rain. Sapphire's grandmother had lived here over forty years ago, and the place she had described just did not exist anymore. Cerulean City was a dense metropolis of silver skyscrapers and congested roads, attached at one end to the largest port in Kanto, and the semi sovereign township that surrounded it.
But Sapphire had been told all these things, in at least vague terms, before she moved here. It's expensive, the apartments are tiny, any job with even the smallest scrap of dignity would mean working for a self entitled Pokemon that could snap you in half without breaking a sweat, the local government is rotten to the core, and getting around is nightmare, also it rains like the sky is holding a grudge.
She expected these things.
What she hadn't expected was how present the federal government was. Propaganda was everywhere; twenty foot metal poles with the national flag on every major road, on both sides of the street, placed every twenty metres. Statues in every square and park and street corner with enough space; all basically the same, all immortalising Pokemon in marble or bronze - Thank you for your fearless service during the great war, and your dedication bringing peace and order to the High Chancellor will forever hold you in their heart.
But it was the posters that annoyed her the most. Join the ministry of social order. Join the ministry of agriculture and cultural preservation. Join the federal police. Join the integrated federal military. Join the ministry for advanced research. Join the citizens regulatory commision. On and on and on. And the very worst part was that taking them down was illegal. If an officer of the federal advertising commission came to your business and put up ten posters, you could go to prison just for damaging them.
Cerulean City was not just a trade port, not just a financial hub, it was a federal glory factory. Every day, in a thousand ways both big and small, Sapphire was reminded that she was not part of the decision making process, she was not even an afterthought on how things were run, she should count herself lucky to even be allowed to live here. To be allowed to live.
She'd not encountered any overt human prejudice towards her yet, but she heard the way most Pokemon spoke to her. And in the bluntest of terms, she lived every day doing exactly what they told her to do.
And yet, in relative terms, she really was lucky to live and work here. An old school friend of hers lived in Vermillion City, and it sounded like a nightmare. There wasn't much of a police presence in Cerulean, and no military. But there were checkpoints on every street in Vermillion, a curfew for citizens without special government approval, and constant no-warning home inspections, usually in the middle of the night.
The war had started in Vermillion. After twenty five years the human population still had not recovered. Cerulean on the other hand had prospered due to the fact it surrendered immediately. One night, while working late in the office and sharing a few drinks, Hank had told her the story of how the Cerulean city council surrendered. They arrested a beloved community leader who was outspoken against The High Chancellor, and wanted to fight. They dragged her before the invading forces and the general population, and drowned her.
There's a statue, in the park the city built to commemorate the end of the war,of the members of that council. For your dedication to the nation from even its earliest days - The High Chancellor will forever hold you in their heart.
Sapphire thanked the stars she had not been alive during the war; the sheer brutality of it evidenced a side of people she didn't want to think about. Then again, she was on the way to help a government official get away with eating an innocent man. But if a Pokemon wanted to eat a human, in all honesty, what could the human do?
Hank had answered that question for her.
Eventually Sapphire arrived at the port; the bars and cafes were already bustling at 10 AM with a 10 PM kind of crowd. She had seen it all before, and still every time she came a couple things would surprise her. Today it was a bare knuckle boxing match that was also a seafood eating contest, fought between a Snorlax with one eye and a Clafairy tattoo, and a Poliwrath called Tolerance. The restaurant being used as a venue had already sustained a level of property damage the ticket sales could not possibly cover. Even stranger than this was Mr. Mime standing outside a black shipping container; there was a sign on the container that read: Pay me 20$ to ignore you while you talk. Very humbling. You will act obnoxious again. Let me help you!
The port authority headquarters had not been rebuilt or renovated since the port was in primary construction. It looked more like a cheap hotel than a government office. Thankfully Risktz was not there. Sapphire gave the copy to his assistant, an affable Polytoad who always wore a bowtie, explained the action plan to him and left.
As Sapphire slowly made her way back to the office, her mind struggled not to flagellate itself. What was she but a patchwork of hypocrisies, willful ignorances, futilities and shallow charm partnered to basic critical thinking? If she had been a seven and a half foot. six hundred pound shell bound beast with cannons fused to her shoulder blades, she'd probably be a piece of shit too. She already was, she was just too weak to hurt anyone except herself.
Falling deeper and deeper into self loathing, Sapphire finally snapped out of it when she realised someone was following her. A small figure, not taller than three feet, in a brown trench coat with its collar pulled up, and a brown trilby pulled as far down as it would go.
She went off course to test her theory, and still the tiny stalker persisted.
She was too tired and too disillusioned to be threated by tiny edgelords in political thriller cosplay. Turning around, Sapphire confronted the hanger on. "Hey, you! Yeah, you! Why are you following me?"
The figure span around and walked away, but Sapphire pursued. Flawlessly faking-out, the figure turned into an alley and vanished. Following it, but unable to locate it, Sapphire shouted, "Do you really think an alley is going to scare me?"
From behind a large metal trash can, the figure strode out, unbuttoning its coat and fixing its collar. "I should hope not, Miss Sapphire, 'cus if alleys wrinkle you you'll have no stomach for what fruit I spent all day picking, just for you."
Pulling its hat back and moving into a beam of light, the stranger smiled at her. It was a bird, unkept and stained, with a cracked bill and a scar running over its left eye. It was a Farfetch'd, the roughest looking Farfetch'd Sapphire had ever seen. She supposed they didn't really belong in cities.
It pulled off two leather gloves that had somehow looked like actual hands, yet of course the Farfetch'd had no hands. So it offered up a wing to shake with.
"The names Dex Dreagle, Dex Finnius Dreagle. My friends call me Dex, and my enemies call me late at night to try and scare me."
"Does it work?" asked Sapphire politely, but cautiously shaking his wing.
"That's for no one to know but me. What you need to know, first and foremost, is that I am a private investigator and freelance journalist, with enough places in this city I can't go no more, one more article and I win the fruit basket with cantaloupe and honeydew."
Sapphire couldn't help but chuckle before giving the little guy a condescending smirk. "I'm sorry, I can't talk to journalists."
Dex chased after her. "Oh but you can, Miss Sapphire, and it might be the most important thing you've done with your life so far. Five minutes, just give me five minutes. Aint nobody ever done anything so important it couldn't wait five minutes. And aint nobody ever done anything so foolish in five minutes it couldn't be reversed. Unless you've eaten the fish stew at Riko's; cus that shit will shoot through you so fast they;ll put your ass on the track team."
Sapphire chuckled again before sighing and clenching her fist. She felt her stomach turning once more, but not out of disgust this time, not even out of fear; it was turning in conflict - the struggle between accepting you are mad, and labelling everyone else as mad. That being said, this Farfetch'd made her look like the picture of health.
"What do you want, Drex Deagle, P.I?" she asked, with mocking emphasis.
Dex took it on the chin. "Do you work at Central Cerulean Public Relations?"
She cocked her head to the side, ever so slightly taken aback. "I do."
The Farfetch'd's face turned serious as stone. "Do you know a Blastoise who goes by Hank 'The Tank' Harrison?"
"Yes…"
"And you work together?"
"I feel like you know we do."
"Please answer the question, Miss Sapphire."
"I do."
"Miss Sapphire, are you aware of the allegations against Mr Harrison, being made by certain sources from within the federal military who wish to remain anonymous?"
"Wait, what?" Sapphire stepped back and glared at the tiny, arrogant stalker. "Are you recording this?"
"I have a good memory," replied Dex, giving nothing away. "Please Miss Sapphire, answer the question."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. That's insane. You're insane. Hank has nothing to do with the military, or the government in general. He thinks they're all pricks."
"He may well think that, Miss Sapphire. But just to be entirely clear; you are stating you have not heard that allegations levied against Mr. Harrison, claiming he has illegally funnelled company money into accounts owned by certain high ranking members of the federal army, including the Field Marshal of Kanto Province, in exchange for private use of the Covert Special Ops Division, colloquially known as The Ghosts, and that this has been linked to the deaths and disappearances of several of Mr. Harrisons enemies and rivals both personally and in business, including his second wife and his daughter's fiance?"
"His daughter's fiance, are you serious?"
"Do I look like I'm joking, Miss Sapphire? I promise you, when I'm joking, you'll know - because in that scenario you will be laughing, and I won't be explaining to you that your employer has been allowed the use of government sanctioned death squads to murder both his competition and his own family members. I can prove it to a reasonable degree already… but to prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt… this is why I need you, Miss Saphire."
"Oh my god," Sapphire felt sick, the alley was closing in. "I… I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything, Miss Sapphire. But think on this, if convinced of the legitimacy of these allegations, what would you be willing to do to put this right?"
"Put this right?"
Dex stared at her with humourless conviction, "There are some things, Miss Sapphire, we cannot let people get away with. No matter who they are."
Dex pulled a brown envelope from out his coat and handed it to Sapphire. "Read that at your leisure, verify it yourself if you want, drink some gin, ask yourself the hard questions." Dex buttoned up his coat and pulled up his collar, "Or throw it away if you don't have the brass, don't have a heart, or think the job of fixing this mess is beneath you. There's no glamour in being a janitor, plus the filth'll kill ya if you're not careful." Pulling his hat down, Dex began to walk away. "If you need to talk, I'll find you. If you aint interested… this never happened. Take care of yourself, Miss Sapphire, lotta dangerous folk out there."
Sapphire watched Dex leave, looked down at the envelope he had given, looked up at the sky, and could say nothing more than "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,"