Chapter 4: Detection
Leo Hanson groaned as the alarm clock did it's part all too well, that being waking him up to the most irritating noise known to man. Still, after taking a three-day weekend he couldn't complain too much.
He did his normal morning routine of showering, combing his light brown hair, brushing teeth, shaving and dressing in his usual blue jeans and tee shirt. Then it was a breakfast of cereal, toast and tea before heading out with sweatshirt draped over his shoulder and buying a newspaper on the way to catching the subway. It was a good half-hour to the last stop on the line across town, nearly out of the city and like many others, used the time to catch up on the daily goings-on around the region.
City Counsel Decides To Break Ground On New Airport, read one headline. Parliament Nixes Plan To Raise Taxes, read another. "Now, there's some good news," mumbling to himself. Reading further, the story went on about raising user fees for certain services, however. "Huh, figures." But he couldn't argue too much - roads did need to be paved and dozens of free Poké centers weren't cheap to maintain either.
There was also the usual Pokémon news, containing League battle outcomes, current research, and such. Even one item about a report of a defective Pokéball made by a trainer when it couldn't absorb a freshly caught Pokémon.
"Bound to happen sooner or later," he mused, thinking nothing and no one was perfect while patting the one he had attached firmly to his belt. But some Pokémon came close. Just like some projects had to.
The expected announcement of the train arriving at the last stop came over the intercom, and he walked off with the few other remaining passengers. From this point it was still a couple miles yet, so he grabbed one of the waiting community bikes and pedaled the rest the way to the large beige-brick building that was one of the University's. Or more correctly put, the result of generous funding from Derganio Corporation to the Pinnacle Valley University.
Having been past it so many times, he didn't pay much attention anymore to the sign inside the door that proudly proclaimed: "Setting the best minds free to follow dreams". It was pretty much true. Walking down the wide brightly lit halls provided a glimpse into the other handful of projects going on, most being many years away from realizing anything. Even if the end results were on the distant horizon, basic research was the cornerstone of better things to come, and those that devoted their lives to that were indispensable.
For himself, he was just slightly too impatient for that. Because of it, and also due in no small part to his being one of the best physics graduate students to come out of the university in a while, he landed on a project promising to achieve something in something less than half a lifetime.
It was also something that could be regarded as…just slightly dangerous.
He let the scanner take a reading of his palm and retina before proceeding through the sliding doors that simply stated "Advanced Physics Department". Then, it was around another corner and down a short hall where at the end another set of doors that he had to push open had merely "Lab 1" stenciled onto them.
And there it was. Behind it's own thick glass wall, stood the object that was the result of the team's six-year effort. Or almost. It wasn't quite finished yet, but beyond the few missing panels and bare wiring running here and there, one wouldn't be able to tell the thick and wide silver ring wasn't complete. The simple sheathing masked the complication inside, from advanced computer processors, superconducting wiring that would be cooled by liquid nitrogen, masers tuned to emit a constantly fluctuating frequency, to even highly experimental gravity generators capable of generating one one-millionth of Earths gravity.
The ring and surrounding support equipment represented a lot of time, sweat and theory. Not just his, but the entire team's. On it, a lot of hopes were pinned.
Yet lately…
He'd had visions for as long as could remember. They were very infrequent, maybe only one every couple of years, but some of them foretold of events that did eventually happen. And lately, he'd been having a few of them, all seemingly having some connection to the project, and all unpleasant. The most recent came as he was installing some circuit boards into the ring, nearly causing him to fall and break the expensive part from the usual faintness he got from them. What he saw…scared him just a little. Just starting the phase two tests, something was apparently going wrong… Not only that, there were a bunch of people around that he didn't recognize. That in and of itself was alarming.
As a result, his once glowing optimism for the project was now tempered. "Phase Two…" Well, they were at least a week or two away from starting Phase One, with the following phase being some indeterminate time after that.
The ongoing question was, should he tell the rest of the team of his visions? He grimaced. They'd probably regard him as nuts and needing to take some more time off. It wasn't possible to see the future, though his past history with the visions argued otherwise.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the only unusual thing about him…
"Well good morning, sunshine!" a feminine voice called from the balcony above. "Hurry up and come up here already."
Brushing aside his feeling of doom-and-gloom, he climbed the stairs to the control deck and greeted Sally. Laying eyes on her was the best tonic to any aliment. The red-head had one of the best figures and easy-going personalities around. And like the other team members, she was also wickedly smart.
"So, how's our dimensionally disturbed Leo today?"
Ticonamo, another of the members at the other end of the small balcony, wasn't quite successful in stifling a snicker.
"Cute," Leo replied, trying to be dead-pan about it. Of course it was true, reminding him of the other mystery about him he wouldn't mind solving.
After inventing and putting together most of the equations they needed for over three years, one of their first tasks was testing some of their theories by constructing a set of instruments that could detect what they termed "dimensional variations". According to their theories, they should exist, though perhaps rarely.
What they actually found after switching on the instruments for the first time three years ago, was one single variation and very close by. The first and obvious conclusion was either their theories were in error, or the instruments themselves were flawed. But try as they might, they couldn't eliminate the reading; it stayed stubbornly consistent and in short, appeared to be real. What they also noticed was it seemed to have a slight, but regular fluctuation, and in fact was timed to his own arrival and departure at the lab.
The implication quickly became clear. For whatever reason, he appeared to have his own personal dimensional "disturbance" around him that has persisted to this day. Further, no other human (or object) within the detector's estimated million-mile range appeared to have anything similar. Which was to say, he was the only object on the planet to have such a thing.
To say it was puzzling would be a gross understatement. Ironically, in some small way it had helped the team by providing a fairly constant "dimensional distortion" source to use as a standard, for constant it was. It also quickly became the second goal of the project to figure out what, exactly, it was and what had or was causing it. More than once he privately wondered if there was some connection between the distortion and his visions.
"Where's our great leader Professor Werner?" asking in seating himself down at his desk.
"He's at a board meeting with Derganio Corp," Sally answered, getting back to her programming work
"Again?" He finished logging himself into the network, intending to solve some minor, but frustrating program bugs he had left from before the weekend ago. Hopefully the extra day off cleared his mind enough for him to solve it quickly.
"Yeah, again," she answered, not moving her eyes off her screen. "Namoi and George should be showing up any time. But before you do anything, take a look at the data I sent you in an email."
"What kind of data?" He quickly got to his email, finding the said item.
"It's from the DV detector."
Meaning the Dimensional Variations detector, for which there was usually one popular use these days. "What, you've been tracking me again?" It was the downside to having such a disturbance about him: in a limited way, the detector could be used to track him anywhere on the globe, or at least, give the general direction and approximate distance.
"Why, you go someplace you shouldn't?" she teased in a prying tone. "But really, take a close look at the amplitude."
Finally getting the attached file opened, he started studying the graphs. The anomaly didn't take long to notice, though. In fact… "Whoa! What the…" Was the data real? "The harmonics are off…"
"I tracked you coming in this morning," Sally continued. "It showed your distortion is the same as before."
"Huh?" Double checking some of the raw data below the graphs, he suddenly noticed the distance vector with mild shock. "Hold on…this is much further away. Hey, did our calibration go out?"
"Calibrations are fine."
Glancing between her and the screen, his heart only then skipped a beat. "Then…there's a second signature!"
"That's what I think. We started detecting it a couple nights ago, but I didn't see it until this morning when I decided to go over the last few days worth of data. If you look right where it started, there's also a sharp spike, though it only lasted a few minutes."
"And it's still close," Ticonamo chimed in from behind him, clearly getting excited as he stopped tapping on his own keyboard to lean over his desk. "About twenty miles, give or take a few."
Leo let out a long-held breath as he leaned back against his chair. "Holy…crud. There's someone else? A second dimensional disturbance, nearly equal to mine…" Skimming through more of the data, he calculated the general direction and was now wishing it was a whole lot more accurate for once. "What's in that direction and at that distance?"
"Jade River City," Sally answered immediately, obviously having already checked the same thing herself.
Jade River…Jade…River? Something about it clicked, something he read just recently… In sudden remembrance, he whipped out that morning's newspaper and opened to the last section. There it was, the story about the defective Pokéball's. Reading it again, he gleaned the remaining details he glossed over before, but there was nothing real important he hadn't already read. "Sally, Poke balls work on a dimensional basis, right?"
"You know that's true, but with only in combination with a Pokémon's unique DNA."
"Yeah, parts of our equations are based on that primitive technology," Ticonamo added.
"I know that," Leo replied before getting up and handing the newspaper over his desk to Sally. "Second article on the left."
The red head took and read the story before looking back curiously. "A defective Pokéball?"
"It happened in Jade River. And I can't believe there were two defective ones at the same time." Noting Sally quickly catching on by her widening eyes and slight opening of her mouth, "So what would be the effect of this distortion if it were around a Pokémon? Would it interfere with the Pokéball's operation?"
She only raised her eyebrows slightly, but clearly was thinking the same thing. "We'll need to find out when this event happened. If it corresponds to when we first detected that spike… But how can a Pokéball suddenly cause a dimensional distortion around a Pokémon?"
"It's not possible," Ticonamo said. "A Pokéball simply isn't capable of maintaining something like that outside of it's own environment. And the signature a Pokéball produces is not only completely different, it's too weak for our DV detector."
Ticonamo confirmed his own thoughts, but… "So, if it can't be the Pokéball that produced it…" He stared at the graph again, directly at the initial spike. "If we can find the trainer that made the report, I'd really like to ask him exactly at what time this happened. That'd tell us for sure if the spike corresponds to his attempt to capture or not."
"And if it doesn't…" Sally asked.
Leo stared back, going over various possibilities in his mind. Nearly at once, they stared at the ring below them at the same time. "No," he said at last. "There can't be another. We're on the cutting edge here. But one thing at a time; let's first find this trainer."
"Ticonamo?" Sally asked. "Could you do us a favor? Could you contact Nohirtio Industries and find out more about that report? You have a friend there, right?"
"Ah, one of the great Pokéball manufacturers," Ticonamo said with a little flare while straightening his glasses. "Well, it might take some doing, but my friend might be able to put us in touch with someone who could help us."
"Thanks, sweetie."
"I thought I was sweetie," Leo commented half-heartily, his mind really on the issue at hand.
"You both are," Sally grinned.
Ticonamo grinned. "Well, I think I'm dying to meet this dimensionally disturbed Pokémon. It might make a good match for you, Leo."
Grabbing the small stuffed animal he had on his desk, he threw it at his fellow team member, Ticonamo putting his hands to his chest in fake injury.
"Hold on," Sally said, putting her hand up, "that's based on a number of assumptions, none of which we've checked out yet."
"Right," Leo added. But speaking of Pokémon, and since it could be a while before Ticonamo could find out anything… Taking his lone Pokéball off his belt, he released who was inside.
"Good morning, Grovyle," Sally greeted the newly emerged Pokémon. "I was wondering when he was going to finally set you loose."
"Gro-vyle!" Hands on his hips, he gave Leo a stern stare.
"Sorry, this business about the second distortion distracted me," Leo apologized. "But what do you say, get you some breakfast then get to work down there?"
"Grovyle grovyle!"
Pokémon may not be able to speak English, but he understood his friend's willingness nonetheless.
"Aipom, quick attack!"
Leo heard the other human's attack order to his Pokémon and knew instantly what to do…or actually, what to expect. What to do still depended on a number of things. Launching any kind of attack while the small monkey was charging him would be foolhardy. The monkey was about to become extremely quick and hard to hit, and being a swampert meant he didn't have the speed to match it. No, he had to go on the defensive until it slowed down.
"Swamp…er, Leo, counter with water pulse!"
He ignored Chris, already knowing how to handle this. Or so he thought. This aipom... Leaping to get out of the way, thinking it's momentum would carry it past, the aipom instead twisted around in mid-air, catching part of his leg with a whack of it's tail in flying past. He landed with a grimace as the pain from the whack started setting in and with surprise, realized this aipom was the fastest he'd ever seen!
"Aipom, it's slow! Another quick attack!"
Chris again shouted for a water pulse, more urgently.
He really wanted to shout back it would be futile but for one, Chris implored him not to talk out in public lest he'd draw a crowd and second, the aipom was already moving on the attack, affording him no time to do so anyway. If the aipom kept hitting him with such fast moving attacks, he'd either have to try one of his own attacks and hope to get lucky, or…
Purposely dodging to the side slightly late (which he really couldn't help anyway), he took the hard blow to his shoulder before crashing to the ground. There was no faking the hurt, but if he could perhaps fake how badly… Staying on the ground, he gripped his shoulder with one hand while barely digging into the well-worn short grass-covered ground with the other.
"Good work, aipom! Now, a hard tail whack and finish it!"
Although looking mostly at the ground, he watched the monkey out of the corner of his eye, then as it approached on it's slower but more powerful attack, released a bit of water through the skin of his hand and into the fistful of dirt he held, waiting for just the right…time…to…
Dodging again to the side, he flung the muddy mixture straight into the aipom's face while simultaneously avoiding the attack. The mudslap strike was perfect; the aipom hit the ground beside him and now blinded, was unable to see where to hit next. Still low to the ground, Leo gave the much smaller creature a water pulse at point-blank range, sending the monkey rolling along the ground a good distance. It didn't get back up, at least not under it's own power.
Still, he had to give the fellow Pokémon a good deal of respect. He'd never had so much trouble with an aipom before. It fought well despite being overmatched, and the trainer giving it instructions clearly knew what he was doing.
Chris, though, was even less happy than the other trainer when he got back to his side of the field, despite the victory. "Hey, if we're going to be part of a team, you're going to have to follow my instructions!"
Leo hissed. His shoulder was throbbing from the last hit, was partly out-of-breath, and he was in no mood to be lectured to by a human who wanted him to follow instructions that he knew better than to follow. "I know how to fight," replying in a strained whisper.
"You did great," Blaze said, giving a pat on his unhurt shoulder. "That aipom moved faster than any we've seen."
At least his partner, as always, was on his side.
The human sighed. "Well, I guess a win is a win, but maybe we'll need some time to figure each other out," he said while the opposing trainer was releasing another Pokémon. "OK, um…Blaze, your turn. Please follow my instructions though, OK? I can't learn how to work with you if you ignore me."
Much better put, Leo thought, grabbing a water bottle Chris had brought for him to replenish water he used during the match. Blaze returned a glance while giving a shrug and a wry grin before going onto the field.
The opposition was a machoke this time, and he had to suppress his strong urge to jump out there and support his friend; they always fought together, no matter the odds. Still, Blaze shouldn't have (too) much trouble he thought…which slipped to hope as things seemed pretty even as the match went on. For the second time that morning, Pokémon that didn't normally give them problems in their world, seemed to be giving them far more difficulty in this human world. Were Pokémon here just stronger for some reason?
As he thought on it, he realized with a start that the world was becoming suddenly fluid…wavy…unstable. No, it wasn't the world…it was him! He was getting lightheaded…and barely caught himself as he went to his knees. Feeling faint, he was sure he was going to pass out, but knew what it really was…
There was something big right in front of him. It looked like the insides of…he didn't know what, but a human hand was installing some flat, thin thing with a bunch of other unidentifiable things stuck on it. The hand put it inside, bolted it in and connected several sets of cables before closing a sliver door over it. His vision stepped back and realized he'd seen the object before. It was the silver ring…
"The what?"
Shaking his head, he found Blaze standing in front of him. "Huh?"
"You looked about to pass out! Are you alright?"
He nodded, noticing Chris to the side also standing over him. "Leo? Are you OK? Maybe I better get you to the Poké center."
"No, I'm fine," he whispered back for the benefit of both. "Really." He knew what it was and the feeling was already gone.
"Still, just to be safe. And you too, Blaze. You took a few too many hits there in winning against that machoke."
"Was it the…" Blaze asked hesitantly.
"Come on," Chris continued, urging them both to get moving. "Sooner we're there, the sooner you'll both be feeling better."
Of course Blaze would recognize the signs; he'd seen its affect on him numerous times, though not recently.
As they walked from the field, Chris leading the way, Leo made sure he altered his language so that only Blaze would understand him, "It was the Dimensional Scream." Yet, he hadn't touched anything!
Leo Hanson reached inside the large ring, grabbing the cable end before stepping up the ladder half-way up the fifteen-foot high ring to the open panel, snaking the cable up from the bottom the whole way. Once up there, he had to reach back down to pick the cable straps out of George's hand.
"You think we'll be ready to power this thing up for the first time next week?" the blonde haired coworker asked while turning around to deal with his own cables. "We still have to test half the secondary control modules before we can install them."
Gathering the slack in the cable, he put the end home into it's matching socket, giving it a twist before proceeding with installing the holding straps. "Maybe. We still have to try testing the interactions…between…the…uh, different…sys…"
Ugh. What…? His vision grew suddenly hazy, and before he could do anything, he was staring at another section of the ring. A hand moved in front of him, George's hand, as he was installing one of the microprocessor boards. George bolted the board in place, connected two cable sets, then placed the panel over the opening…
"Grovyle!"
Leo regained his breath, realizing he was in the green arms of his Pokémon…at the bottom of the ladder!
"Hey, you OK?" George asked with alarm.
"Leo!" Sally yelled as she came running down the stairs from the balcony, across the floor and past the open glass doors into the ring room.
Grovyle helped him stand and kept a hand on him along with George as he regained his balance.
"Good thing you were here, Grovyle!" George said to the Pokémon. "I had my back turned and didn't…."
Leo looked up at the ladder, also glad. Also worried. It was the third time in the last week or so he'd had one of those visions, only the earlier ones didn't happen while he was up on a ladder! "I'm fine. I just…" He stopped, knowing he wasn't sounding too convincing as he was still trying to shake off the faintness and regain his bearings after the fall.
"We're getting you to a doctor now," Sally insisted.
He prepared to argue with her, then realized what he saw in the vision. He had to know! Waving off her hands, he went to the other side of the ring, releasing the temporary clasps holding one of the panels.
"What are you doing?" George asked, worry in his tone.
"Leo, you need to get to…"
Ignoring them, he gave the superconductor control board a quick look. And there it was… "One of the cables isn't attached," he said, pointing out the still unattached cable partly hidden by the board.
"Huh…Ah!" George exclaimed. "I just installed that yesterday…huh? How'd you know that?"
Leo faced both of his peers and shrugged; their faces were anything but deadpan.
"It's you!" the nurse exclaimed from the other side of the counter. "The talking swampert!"
Leo was glad there was no one else in the room to hear her.
From there, it was the usual questions as she lead them into a treatment room, got Blaze seated on a table, and put two chairs together for him. Leo questioned that at first, then figured out the space between the chairs was for accommodating his back fin, so he could sit like a human. Clever, he thought, taking note and hoping Chris would do the same. It was the one part of his anatomy that he really wished wasn't there. He longed to lay on his back one of these days…
After a cursory examination, the nurse gently rubbed something into his shoulder which made an instant difference in the throbbing, the massage feeling good too.
"How's that?" she asked.
He tested it by moving his arm in it's full range of motion. "Better. Thanks."
"That'll take care of the pain, but you Pokémon heal fast, so I don't think you'll even know anything happened by tomorrow morning." The brown-haired nurse then stood back, just staring at him. "Still can't believe it: a talking Pokémon. It sure does make treatment easier when you can tell me exactly what's wrong and how you feel."
"Just like treating a human now, huh?" Chris commented.
The nurse nodded.
If only he knew, Leo thought.
Folding his arms across his chest, "Hey, is it my turn now?" Blaze asked. "My head feels like it was used as a drum!"
"My partner needs some help," Leo relayed with a nod toward Blaze. "His head hurts."
The nurse's eyes widened. "Oh! Sorry!" She hurriedly began checking the infernape out, leaving him and Chris to look on as she went through a slightly different examination.
His thoughts turned to the vision...and the ring he saw again. Though this time it was clearly the Dimensional Scream and not in a dream. Did that mean all his dreams were actually connected to the Scream? Perhaps, his dreams weren't necessarily memories, but simply events that either have happened or will happen to someone else. But the visions never happened when he was asleep before!
One thing was becoming certain, though: whatever that ring was, it was featuring prominently in his visions. Never before had the same thing appeared in more than one vision. Not only that, if the dreams were indeed the Scream, what was it that he was touching that was triggering them? Could that opposing aipom…or Blaze, have been the trigger?
He looked his partner where he was sitting on the table, being treated by the nurse as she stuck a small needle in him. He grimaced at the sight, but Blaze didn't seem to mind (much).
The aipom…he just couldn't see what connection it had with anything, but Blaze… If the ring was in their future, he would logically be involved with it at some point if they were destined to encounter it. And he did touch his shoulder just a short time before the vision. Yet…the visions always happened almost immediately after touching a trigger. It certainly had been longer than the usual interval between when Blaze touched him and when he had this last one.
Maybe an effect of being in a different world?
Didn't explain the visions coming to him as dreams, though.
Or were those truly not visions? Could he have been really remembering old memories, while the Scream was giving him visions of the future?
Sighing with irritation, he realized his own head was beginning to hurt. Too many questions and no answers. After leaving the Poké Center and on the way back to Chris's home, he explained his thoughts to Blaze in Poké speech.
His partner seemed to give them considerable thought. "Maybe we should also be looking for this ring in addition to your human self."
Leo nodded. "But my earlier dream about it, I had such a sense of…something not right about it. I think we need to be really careful for now on."
"So, what are you two talking so much about?" Chris asked, swinging around to them in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Nice weather today," Leo replied with a smile.
Chris waited a moment more before moving his eyeballs up with a slight shake of his head and getting back to leading them home.
A grin crept across Blaze's face.
Leo Hanson tried not to blink as the doctor moved the bright light from one eye to the other. "This really isn't necessary. I'm fine."
The doctor upturned a corner of his mouth while changing instruments to an ear probe. "Well, people just don't faint and fall off ladders for no reason," he replied, sticking the said equipment into first one ear, then the other. "If they did, the ladder companies would be out of business from litigation. Hold still."
It was true, people didn't for no reason, but he knew his reason already, if not necessarily the root cause. Unfortunately, he feared the time was fast approaching when he was going to have to divulge it to at least Sally, George, and Ticonamo, and maybe Professor Werner and Namoi too. He wasn't thinking too clearly when he pulled the access panel off the ring and found a problem he should have known nothing about, until at least they started testing that subsystem the following week. Trouble was, was anyone going to believe him? Perhaps his next stop might be a mental ward. Though, finding that unattached cable in front of them was powerful evidence…unless they might think he pulled it off when nobody was looking to only miraculously "find" it later.
No. George only installed the board yesterday when he wasn't there.
So, if they did believe him about the visions, how would they react to the foreboding he had about a couple of them? The vision before the last…he was certain something was going wrong. "Phase Two…" What the hell was supposed to happen during it? Who were those people?
"Phase what?" the doctor asked, turning away from his computer where he was typing something in.
"Uh…sorry, thinking about work." Phase One would be a complete subsystem checkout and partial power up of the superconductor coils along with the maser emitters. Phase Two would take it further, to generate a partial…
"Alright," the doctor said, interrupting his thoughts. "I'm going to order a compete blood workup. So far, everything seems normal, but the blood tests should indicate if you have a virus or not. That would be my first guess."
"And if I don't?" Leo asked, hoping he wouldn't be ordering more tests…
"I'm having extra blood drawn to check your vitamin and mineral levels, see if you're deficient in anything. Fainting can also be caused by lack of certain nutrients. If those don't show anything, we could do an MRI and have a peek at your brain. After that…well, let's see what these other tests turn up first."
"An MRI," Leo thought as he walked out of the lab where the vampires resided. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Perhaps it could turn up why he was getting visions.
"So, are you going to live?" Sally asked, standing up as he entered the hospital's waiting room.
"Find out next week," he replied, deliberately making her wait for an answer. After the expected "come-on-and-tell-me" look: "Doctor thinks it could be a virus. Blood tests will tell for sure." Which he already knew would come back negative. No virus would explain what happened. "Let's get out of here. I hate the smell of hospitals."
After leaving and getting into her car: "That won't explain how you knew about that unconnected cable."
He remained mostly mum about it the way back to the lab, earning him the you-know-something-you're-not-telling look next.
"Leo, are you OK?" Naomi asked, putting a hand on his shoulder as Grovyle came instantly to his side after he and Sally climbed the stairs to the balcony. George and Ticonamo were there as well, meaning the entire team was up there, except one.
"Yeah, I'm fine, until they find something wrong. Is the Professor back yet?" Not that he didn't want him back, but he really rather he wasn't if he had to launch into his explanation of how he knew about the cabled. Last thing he wanted to be is kicked off the team for being "unstable". Well, alright, he was pretty sure that wouldn't happen because of this episode, but the Professor had many connections within the university. He wanted to work on a research project, not become one.
"He got back a couple hours ago," Ticonamo answered. "He's in his office."
George piped in: "He didn't look…real happy. Not unhappy, but not very happy, either."
It was an open secret the Derganio Corporation had a particular interest in this project for some reason. More and more the Professor was meeting Corporation representatives, even hosting a visit at the lab for them a few weeks earlier. What wasn't real clear was why.
"George told me what happened," Naomi said with not worry, but curiosity in her voice. "I mean, about finding the disconnected cable like that. That was one heck of a…guess."
"Grovyle!" Grovyle exclaimed, as if echoing Naomi's comment.
"Got lucky," Leo replied, hoping to brush it aside.
"You made a bee-line for it, Leo," George pointed out. "Like you knew it was disconnected. I put that board in when you weren't even here, so what gives with that?"
Here it comes… He sighed, taking his seat at his desk and noting all eyes were on him. Yet, he just couldn't bring himself to tell them yet. "Maybe…I just had a sudden urge to check your work," he smiled, grabbing a handful of his favorite snack of chocolate candies from his glass candy bowl before logging into his station. After several hours at the hospital, he was starving!
George sighed, shaking his head.
Even though George was a good few years younger, his work was nearly as good as his…most the time.
To his relief, the phone on Ticonamo's desk trilled. Ticonamo answered, then hurriedly pushed the glasses back up his face before grabbing a pen and scribbling something down. After another half minute of thanking whoever it was profusely, he terminated the connection.
"Hey, my friend at Nohirtio Industries came through! He got the name and address of the trainer who reported the defective Pokéballs. Guess what? He lives in Jade River City!"
Chris didn't seem in much of a hurry leading them back to his home. Instead, he took them in a slightly different direction, first along the river the city was named after, then past various buildings Leo recognized as shops of some sort, though very different and selling very different things from what he was used to. Other Pokémon were around too, generally following some human or another. Most paid he and Blaze no heed, though a couple gave friendly greetings.
"Let's go in here," Chris suggested, stopping at one store and holding the glass door open.
Leo noticed the sign on the way in: NO LARGE POKEMON ALLOWED IN STORE. "Are we large?"
"I think they mean larger then a human," the human replied, ushering them off in one direction. "Afraid of damage."
The things inside…he hadn't seen the likes of before, or rather couldn't remember seeing, though one area they walked through had clothing of various sorts.
"What's this?" Blaze asked, holding up one of the said articles.
Leo couldn't immediately place a use for the two round things attached together by a couple straps, but noticed Chris's face becoming a little red.
"Ladies underwear," he hissed quietly. "Put it back!"
"What's underwear?" But Blaze shrugged and did as asked.
A young human woman nearby was grinning; Chris gave a audible sigh of relief when they got past the area.
In going down the various isles, the human picked several items, most being food, judging by the drawings on the containers. Then one of the isles had a sign titled "Pokémon food" above it. "What kind of food do you two like?"
Leo exchanged glances with Blaze after briefly looking down the row of shelves stacked high with bags of… "Food?"
"Yeah, they have all kinds of Pokémon food here. What do you like?"
"The hot dogs were good," Blaze commented.
"So were those potato chips," Leo added after translating Blaze's comment.
"Uh, well, they are good, but you need something more nutritious. So do I, actually."
"Do they have applies or berries?"
Frowning a little, "Well, they're kinda expensive right now. This food here is even better for you, though. And cheaper."
Following his partner down the isle, Leo eventually agreed with him on something based entirely on smell and the drawing on the bag. Though he read the words on it to Blaze, "Wholesome", "Flavorful", "Eleven Herbs & Spices" and "Great Aroma" held little meaning.
Chris hoisted a couple of the smaller bags and lead them to what he called a checkout line, where Blaze struck up a short conversation with a pichu behind them, though it was clear the pichu knew little, being very new to the world.
Leo sighed. For some reason, the waiting in line was getting to him. He found himself staring idly at each of the items on display around them…stopping on one in particular, "Choc…a…late candies." Huh? Visible through the clear bag were a handful of dark brown…berries? On a powerful urge, he grabbed the bag off it's hook for a closer sniff, and for just an instant, saw a glass bowl filled with them as a sweet taste filled his mouth.
"Leo?"
He faced Blaze, realizing that he hadn't moved for a moment. "I think I like these." Another memory? Certainly wasn't the Dimensional Scream…
"Looks like your Pokémon wants that chocolate," some female voice said.
Turning, he saw both Chris and the woman on the other side of the counter staring at him.
"Fine," Chris replied, grabbing the bag from him to allow the woman to move it over something, producing a beep.
"The food is for a trip we're taking tomorrow morning," Chris announced after they left the store.
"What?" Blaze asked, almost incredulously.
"Where are you going?" Leo asked and like Blaze, not really liking the surprise and not being asked.
"Well, remember the gym battle I told you about? The gym is in Pinnacle Valley. If we can win the match there, it's last badge I need before I can enter in the Tournaments. I lost my last two attempts but I think with you two on my team, I can win there finally."
"Didn't you say before we needed more time to work with each other?" Leo asked. Not that he particularly wanted to work with the human, but if he had to, he would agree it'd be wise to get some more practice first.
Blaze was nodding in agreement.
Chris was grinning while shifting the apparently heavy and awkward load he was carrying around in his arms. "Oh don't worry about that, there'll be plenty of chances for battles along the way. I would prefer to wait and work with you more before setting off, but my summer vacation is running out and I'd really, really like to get into the Tournaments before going back to work. There is just no time to wait to get that last badge. Um…oh, sorry, I'm just not used to asking my Pokémon's permission. Are you OK with this?"
"If we want this human's help, I don't think we have much choice," Blaze replied.
Reluctantly, Leo nodded. Then to Chris: "We'll do our best," while catching one of the slipping bags of Pokéfood before it hit the ground.
The rest of the walk back was uneventful as they moved out of the area that had the shops to where most people lived. They passed the now-familiar park, with it's seemingly never-ending battles between Pokémon and the humans who were their "trainers", with the current battle being between a chimchar and a bulbasaur.
"That bulbasaur's gonna get roasted," Chris commented.
"If humans choose which Pokémon to battle, the one that choose that bulbasaur to fight that chimchar is dumb," Blaze commented, folding his arms across his white haired chest as the three of them stopped to watch. "But I hope the chimchar wins," flashing a sharp-toothed grin.
As predicted, the fight instantly started out back for the bulbasaur, and it was all downhill from there. Leo felt sorry for the bulbasaur and the young human boy, shedding water from his eyes as he ran right past them in the direction of the Pokécenter.
He and Blaze had left more than their share of grass-type Pokémon in…slightly less than healthy shape. But then, all those Pokémon attacked of their own free will and of course, he and Blaze had to defend themselves. It was a constant struggle as many Pokémon, regardless of how they stacked up against each other, seemed to have an innate desire to compete and become stronger, many of them living in the wilds to look for their next chance to fight.
Though some Pokémon exhibited that trait more then others. For the two of them, they evolved to their strongest forms a while ago and felt little need to make themselves even stronger. And yet, having the trouble he did in dealing with just an aipom…
"Poor kid," Chris finally said as they started moving again. "I'll bet that's his first Pokémon, and maybe even his first battle, too. Hope his bulbasaur's OK."
He had a few questions, but decided to hold them until they got back to Chris's apartment; too many humans around would hear him talk.
Blaze took the other bag of Pokéfood from Chris while he got his apartment door open, then commented on the blinking light on the way to the kitchen.
"Hey, Professor Korton left a message," Chris announced, apparently noticing the same. "Touch 'Play Message' on the screen to play it," as he started unpacking.
Leo read the screen and very gently, touched it with one of his big blue fingers. The Professor's image appeared on the screen immediately and started speaking.
"Hello Chris. I've heard back from the other Pokémon Professors in the area. I'm afraid of the trainers who have a first name of "Leo", none seem to have a grovyle. One does have a treecko, which you probably know evolves into a grovyle, but that's pretty much it. In case you did want to meet that trainer, I downloaded a photo of him to your phone. Maybe he's the one you're looking for, but like I said, no other Leos have a grovyle that anyone has records of. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Good luck and talk to you later."
Leo watched the Professor's image fade from the screen, noticing Chris had joined them at some point. "Does this mean this Leo doesn't exist?"
Chris sighed, appearing to think for a minute. "Well, I'm sure he was only able to check for this country. Other possibilities are the databases the Professors have aren't up-to-date, this Leo doesn't exist, or he's not a trainer; not everyone who has Pokémon is a trainer. In fact, most aren't. Might as well check out that photo, though." Reaching across the chair, the blonde-haired human touched a few squares on the screen; a photo of a human boy appeared.
"He looks young," Blaze said. "How old are you supposed to be?"
"Older then when Wigglytuff formed the guild," Leo replied. "What would that be, at least fifteen years?" To Chris: "He's too young."
Chris furrowed his forehead: "You know how old your Leo is?"
Your Leo was an interesting way of putting it, Leo thought. "Not exactly, but he's older then this human." Not to mention he didn't recognize the boy one bit, which didn't necessarily mean he would recognize himself if he did see him. But he was hoping he would.
"Dunno how much that will help. A last name would have us find him almost instantly. Sure you don't know it?"
It was only the number one thing at the top of his "must remember" list… "Yes, I'm sure. So what do we do now?" asking as he felt hope fading.
Chris pulled out a large cloth sack with straps attached from a space under the desk and moved back into the kitchen before answering. "Guess we have to start calling up each of the Leos in the phone directory. I can't think of anything else to do. I was pretty sure this guy would be a trainer since he has a grovyle, but apparently he isn't…or at least isn't one in this country." Opening the cloth sack by sliding something on it that produced a weird muffled metallic sound, he started stuffing it with much of the food he bought earlier. "But we should confine our search here at first; even then, it's going to take a while, like a few weeks to get through the entire phone directory. I'll have to start calling when we get back from Pinnacle Valley."
Leo Hanson terminated the connection. Busy. So, this Chris Urbason was home finally…or someone just happened to be leaving him a message right at the moment. He would have left him a message earlier himself, but felt he should at least introduce himself "live."
"No luck yet?" Sally asked, getting up from her console and stretching, inadvertently showing off some of her feminine attributes.
…or maybe not so inadvertently Leo thought, noting she was watching his every move all of the sudden. He swore she teased him purposely every now and then. "Not yet."
"Well, guess you'll have to try again tomorrow. You're still feeling alright, right? Do you want me to drive you home?"
"Ah no, I'm fine, thanks," returning her smile. Was she hoping he'd say otherwise? Maybe he should say yes instead... No, he really needed to do something else on the way out and didn't want to keep her. "The Professor is still in his office?"
Sally had already gathered her few things and was starting down the stairs. "Last time I checked an hour ago. He hasn't been out since we got back I think. Maybe I should stop in and see if everything's alright."
"I was planning on doing that anyway. Go ahead and have yourself a good evening. No doubt we'll be putting in late nights soon enough."
She cocked her head a little, letting her long red hair fall to the side slightly. "Well, alright. See you tomorrow, then, and let me know if anything's up with him…or you, OK?" With a wave, she was down the stairs and left the lab, leaving him alone with the others having already gone home for the day.
He finished the minor task of saving off his work, hoping he had finally eliminated the one bug that'd been causing him grief, before logging out. He also hoped his other source of grief from the others trying to get to the bottom of what happened with him earlier would stop as well.
"Stupid," he finally said out loud before remembering Grovyle was still there. He should never have removed that plate to check what he saw in his vision. Well, too late now. With an annoyed sigh at himself, he left his desk and headed out of the lab, Grovyle padding behind almost silently, to stop at Professor Werner's office. Light was illuminating the frosted glass in the door, more or less proving he was still in there. After knocking and waiting for the Professor to answer, he motioned Grovyle to wait in the hall and entered the quaint office that was filled with various technological relics, including a very old "desktop" computer in one corner that stopped functioning long ago.
"Hi Professor," greeting as he came in. The grey-haired man who was over twice his age was sitting at his large, cluttered, decades-old metal desk, typing on his much more modern computer.
"Oh, Leo!" the Professor replied in his slightly northern-type accent that tended to blur certain vowels. "I heard what happened to you today. I was going to stop out there, but I had something pressing to take care of for our sponsors. Are you OK? Did the hospital find anything?"
"No, I'm fine. They're still doing some tests, but so far everything's fine."
The older man nodded. "Good, good."
He was about to ask about the meeting the Professor had earlier, but the head of the project continued: "I also wanted to talk to you about this data the DV detector recorded. This is unbelievable! Have you been able to contact that trainer yet?"
"Ticonamo's been filling you in, then?" Not that that was a bad thing since it meant one less thing he had to tell the Professor. After the Professor nodded, "No, haven't been able to get a hold of him yet. I'm going to try again tomorrow."
The Professor leaned back, folding his hands as if considering something. "Would you do me a favor then? Would you travel to Jade River yourself tomorrow and talk to this trainer? I think it would be better if one of us introduced ourselves and talked to him in person."
"Go there tomorrow?" Not that the request surprised him; the thought of going there himself had already crossed his mind, but… "Isn't this a little fast? I think talking to him over the phone first would be better."
The Professor seemed to acknowledge by nodding again. "Right, but finding someone else with a distortion like yours I think warrants a little more attention. See if you can talk this trainer into bringing his Pokémon here. With the equipment here, we can learn more than otherwise."
"Bring him here? Into the lab?" Alright, now he was beginning to be surprised. Doing tests very well could be the eventual course of action, but… "That would mean exposing him to the project. I was thinking of just meeting him and gathering more information first, before deciding what…"
"I've already decided. We need him and his Pokémon here in order to do any reasonable study; all the equipment is here. Ticonamo's friend said it was a swampert, right?"
"Uh, right." Assuming it did have the distortion and it was the reason for the Pokéball's failure. "But what about security? I thought we weren't going to expose people outside the project to this." Was he just being overcautious? The Professor did seem to be in far more of a hurry than he was, too.
"We'll make him sign a non-disclosure. And the Pokémon certainly isn't going to say anything."
If it was only one person, then maybe it would be OK. "Well…alright."
"What I'm really curious about…is why we just suddenly started detecting this distortion only two nights ago. And a Pokéball certainly can't cause it, in any malfunction mode."
"I know." A Pokéball being the only real technology in existence that dealt with dimensions when they first detected his own distortion, the project team had already examined the technology to see if it could cause such a thing. In short, it couldn't.
The Professor fell silent for a half moment, before reaching for something that jingled out of a drawer and throwing it to him. "Take the university car. I'll take your bike and catch the subway tonight."
Leo tried to envision the man being in his late sixties on the bike and gave up. "I could drop you off at home…"
"No, no. I need the exercise anyway. I may not look it, but I still occasionally ride one." He tapped a few more keys on his keyboard and by his silence, made it clear he was done. "Good luck tomorrow."
"Uh, Professor, I was also wondering how the meeting with Derganio went?"
"Huh? Oh, it went about as well as usual. They just have a lot of interest in this project, as you know."
"I gathered that, but have they ever said why?"
"Same reasons as us, mostly. Advancement of technology and opening new ways of travel. They are a energy and transportation company, you know."
Deciding it was time to be more straightforward: "John…it's just, it feels like they're becoming a little overbearing. Like their interest is becoming unhealthy." He didn't often call the Professor by his first name, but being the second oldest person on the team after the Professor, he sometimes used that privilege when he felt it necessary. "This is a University project, and they're only providing half the funding."
"And helped build this building. They also originally suggested the idea of this project. Look Leo, if this technology works, the next step is making it failsafe and then distributing it on a world-wide scale. Derganio wants to be first in line, naturally. But the CEO himself is personally interested in it. He just finds the whole concept fascinating. That's all there is to it."
It made sense…in a overly simplistic way.
As he was starting to leave the Professor's office: "Oh and Leo, please be careful."
Huh? He paused closing the door behind him. "Careful? Is meeting this guy going to be dangerous?"
The Professor smiled again. "Shouldn't be. But be careful anyway."
He left the Professor's office wondering if there wasn't some hidden meaning. Driving to Jade River and meeting with the trainer shouldn't be any more dangerous then driving to meet anyone else. Did the Professor know something about this trainer?
All-in-all, he seemed alright, but his big hurry to find this trainer and get him to the lab puzzled him a little. "Just feels like he's jumping the gun a little. Bring someone in the lab without any background checking?"
Walking beside him, Grovyle looked up. "Groveryle?"
Leo waited until they left the building before continuing, "…or maybe he had already and that was why he was telling me to be careful." Glancing at his green friend, he didn't really expect him to follow his train of thoughts.
Yes, that would make sense, though not the urgency. It almost felt like there was something the Professor wasn't telling him. And…he paused, looking back at the doors to the building he and Grovyle just left, "Was that a bruise on the Professor's forearm?"
"Groooovyle?"