A Reminiscence

Chapter Fifteen

Conspiracy

()()()

Almost alone within the confines of my plush room, I was able to, for once, work in peace, no sounds or bizarre little interruptions to distract me from my work. As such, I was able to complete the entire presentation, and then go back and adjust a few things within to truly perfect it. Even by that time, my friends had yet to return, giving me the run of the place. I stepped outside of my room and saw that Ralph was still well asleep, and I considered my options. There was little in the city that might have interested me, and going all the way out to what did and back probably would have taken far too long to be reasonable. The rooms, of course, did have their own entertainment systems, which might have been a valid option, assuming there was anything there I wanted to watch that did not have a fee associated with it, which was quite unlikely.

While I considered my options, I noticed a slight glint on one of the pillars in the center of the great room and walked over to it. I attempted to affirm myself that what I was seeing could not possibly have been, but there it sat: a small listening device of some sort, obviously very high-end and astonishingly advanced. My first guess was that the hotel had placed it there to keep an eye on what was going on within their more expensive rooms, but dismissed that notion when I realized no company, regardless of how wealthy they were, would have access to such technology as this. No, this was a government plant, and clearly one intended for us.

"What is the meaning of this?" I wondered, pulling it off and observing it carefully. It was very small indeed, but I recognized the recent advancements in satellite technology might well have allowed for such a device to function, especially if it belonged to the military higher-ups.

Silently, I searched around the room to see if I could find anything else suspicious, coming up with nothing. Having collected some data, I reentered my room and took a seat, trying to connect it into a coherent whole.

"Obviously, somebody wants to hear what we have to say," I said, "but to what end? And why was it placed in the main room when we are more likely to stay in our own…aha!" I leapt up and crossed to the entertainment system, looking it over and finding another listening device of the same type. "Then they have bugged all of our rooms! Do you hear that, whoever you are? I am onto you!" I thought for a moment, and snapped my fingers as I realized who was responsible for this. "Greeley. Of course, this has all been far too convenient. You obviously set this up so that you could steal our secrets and use them for your own good. Likely, you were already planning to assassinate me before I could give my presentation and then take the credit for yourself, or one of your lackeys. Well, bad news: you are hardly the greatest foe I have faced." I set the listeners down and began rifling through my luggage, looking for any tool that might be appropriate. Soon, I found one: a tiny pair of tweezers, useful for connecting wires…or removing things. Retrieving the listeners, I set about taking them apart and removing the batteries, rendering them worthless but still intact, so as to provide useful evidence in the future. Soon, the tiny metal cylinders were out, and the listeners nothing more than very fancy, expensive hunks of metal. I then proceeded to go through the rest of the rooms and do the same thing there, careful not to wake Ralph up, eventually producing a grand total of six disabled listeners, more than sufficient proof of some sort of conspiracy at work.

"Well, there it is, then," I said, putting the devices in my pocket. "Now what?"

My answer came when the door opened, and in walked Jack, carrying an impressive bag of various trainer items.

"Jack!" I said, glad to see him.

"Oh, Berkeley, you're still here?" he asked, setting his things down. "Man, I've been in town, and you would not believe the shit they have in there! Luxury Balls, Ultra Balls, every kind of poffin you can think of…it's paradise!"

"I would imagine," I said, stepping closer. "Can I see you in my room?"

"Uh…Larch, I'm not really into that sort of thing."

I scoffed. "You know what I meant, come on!" I grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, retrieving the listeners and showing them. "I found these throughout the suite. Somebody has been listening to us, and I am willing to bet it was Greeley."

Jack looked at them and shook his head, surprised by such a thing. "Maybe…maybe they're just a security measure? You know, to make sure we aren't terrorists or anything?"

"I doubt that very much, Jack. Something is afoot, and I intend to find out what."

"By doing what, causing an international incident?" Jack crossed his arms, unimpressed. "Larch, you can't always save the day. Give it a rest, man, this isn't healthy for a man your age."

I frowned. "I am not about to let some foreign government conspiracy take hold of my privacy and use me as its pawn. No, Jack, I fully intend to get to the bottom of this, and I will not let you stop me. Remember what Slick said? Something funny is going on, and it may not just be me. This could be huge!"

"If it is huge, what makes you think you can stop it?" Jack demanded. "You're just one man going up against what you think is a huge conspiracy! That won't work! If I didn't know any better, I would say you were wearing a tinfoil hat already!"

"Let us not stoop to petty insults again, Jack," I warned. "Besides, unlike those types, I have concrete evidence that something is up."

Jack looked me over, and softened up slightly. "Okay, look, if you are doing this, you're going to get yourself killed if you don't have any help. I'm not letting you go down alone."

I smiled. "Thank you, Jack. That does really mean quite a lot."

"Don't get all teary-eyed on me, man, this is awkward enough already."

"Sorry." I turned back to the main door as I heard it open, revealing that Anne and Slick had returned as well. The former was carrying an even larger haul of trainer items than Jack had, and the latter was, as Anne had promised, wearing a very nice bowler hat with a red band, but had also secured a lovely monocle and a cane, both of which he likely had no need for.

"Hey, guys!" he greeted, walking over to us with a very noticeable swagger. "Don't I look kickass?"

"You would have in 1850," Jack said. "Seriously, why don't you grow out some massive mutton chops while you're at it?"

Slick glared at him, annoyed. "You're just jealous because I look cooler than you."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's it."

"Anne?" I interrupted, wanting to put a stop to this. "Could you please come over here?"

She set her massive pile of things down and did so, carefully observing what I had in my hand.

"What the hell are these?" she asked.

"Listening devices," I explained. "I found them throughout the suite. Worry not, I already took the batteries out."

"Who put them here?" Slick asked. "And more importantly, why?"

"I have reason to believe it was Greeley who did so, and as for the why…well, I have yet to figure that out."

"I knew something was up!" Slick yelled. "It's been the government after me this entire time! How long until they start frying my brain with microwave satellites?" He firmly grasped my shoulders, shaking me around like a madman. "How long, man?!"

"Get off of me, you lunatic!" I cried, pushing him away. He calmed down quickly, though still seemed somewhat frightened. "Look, we should not panic. Rather, we should collect the facts and then form a complete view of what is going on. Greeley being responsible for this is only an educated guess at this point. If we are to truly solve this, we must find out everything we can and then take action."

"He's right," Jack said. "Greeley might not even be the center of this. There could be something even bigger than him going on here."

"Who could be higher up than the president of the most powerful country on the planet?" Slick asked.

"A valid point," I agreed. "I hold that Greeley is our best bet."

"Okay, then, how do we find him, Mr. Professor?" Jack asked. "He's probably miles away by now!"

I rubbed my chin, trying to come up with an answer to the question. "Anne, Slick, while you were in town, did you notice anything pointing to Greeley? Anything at all?"

"Wait, yeah, I think I saw something!" Slick piped up. "When we were by the city hall, there were a bunch of those suit guys waiting outside. Anne, do you remember?"

Anne thought for a moment. "Oh, yeah, those guys! I didn't know what they were doing there, though, I got distracted by a trainer mart."

"Whatever they were doing, Greeley is probably there. I say we head over there and get some answers!"

"What, just walk up to him and ask 'Say, sir, you wouldn't happen to have been spying on us?'" Jack asked. "Yeah, that'll go well!"

I smirked. "No, Jack, we are going to play this a bit smarter. Slick, are you able to project your illusions to disguise others?"

"Uh…" Slick thought for a moment, fiddling with his hat. "I might be able to. No guarantees, though."

"Well, come on, try!" Anne urged. "You won't ever get anywhere if you don't try!"

"Don't platitude, Anne. All right, here goes!" Slick closed his eyes, and we all grew silent, waiting to see what would happen. It took a bit, but soon enough, we were awash in a red wave, and found ourselves looking exactly the same.

"What the hell?" I asked, looking around. "What happened?"

"Ah, that's the trick!" Slick said, opening his eyes. "You'll all look perfectly normal to yourselves, but to any outsiders, we're completely different people! It took me quite some time to figure that out, let me tell you!"

"How do we know it worked?" Jack asked. His request was fulfilled as a freshly-woken Ralph, who seemed very refreshed, stepped out of his room and gawked at us.

"Why are there a bunch of Agent Smiths in my room?" he asked, baffled.

"Uh," I began. "Ralph, I know this looks somewhat poor, but trust me, there is a good explanation for this."

"Hold on, hold on," Slick said, closing his eyes again and casting the same illusion on Ralph. His confusion was alleviated as we appeard normal once again, but now it was Jack that had the question.

"What was that about Agent Smith?" he asked.

"Well, you all looked like Agent Smith," Ralph explained. "Kind of freaked me out for a minute there. I'm glad I wasn't armed…"

"What?" I asked, shocked. I dismissed it, though, and turned to Slick. "Interesting choice for that. Why Agent Smith clones?"

"It's easier for me to do that if you all look the same," Slick explained. "Plus, now we fit in better with the whole speech thing going down."

I raised an eyebrow. "That is quite clever, actually! Bravo, Slick!"

"Yeah. Shame the world won't get to see how badass I look in this getup."

"Sure…" Jack said. "So, now what? We just go downtown and get inside?"

"Sounds good to me," Ralph said. "I think I should be the leader here, since I know how this sort of thing works."

"Probably wise," I said. "Any objections?"

"Well, I still say this is kind of a bad idea…" Jack began, "but I'm not about to let whatever's going on here continue if I can help it. I'm in."

"So am I," Anne added. "I don't like people spying on me."

"Come on, let's go." Ralph began to walk out, but I stopped him.

"Hold on, we should turn the illusion off," I said, giving him pause. "It would look odd for a bunch of identical service agents to just come out of the top floor."

"Oh, right." Slick snapped his fingers, and the illusion quickly dissipated, leaving us back to normal…at least, to anyone on the outside. "So…now we go?"

"Yes," Ralph said, trying again. I had no objection this time, so we all followed, readying ourselves for what was ahead.

()()()

Soon, despite the valet's incessant questioning about us needing anything, we were able to get into the lobby, putting us at least one step closer, but I still had an uncomfortable feeling.

"Does anybody feel as if they are still being watched?" I asked, looking around to see if there was anything suspicious. I saw nothing, but that may not have been much consolation.

"I don't," Jack said. "It wouldn't be worth it to put observation down here if we only came down, like, once or twice."

"But here we are, discussing our plans," I said. "Clearly, it would be worth it because they could figure out what we are planning."

"Not if we whisper!" Slick yelled.

"Or just don't talk about it in here," Anne said. "I mean, they can't be monitoring everything in the city, right?"

"Well…probably not," I said. "We should find an alleyway and then disguise ourselves. Stay away from prying eyes."

We took our leave, but I still could not help but look back at the lobby before we completely exited, wondering if there was, indeed, somebody watching. I set that aside and continued out, though, still feeling uncomfortable.

()()()

To an outside observer, the sight of five identical Secret Service agents casually strolling out of an alley near the hotel was probably quite strange, though given the president's presence, not entirely unexpected.

"Operation is go," Anne said as we walked down the street in a group. "Prepare to convene at insertion point."

"Anne, what the hell are you doing?" Jack asked.

"I'm trying to get into character!" she said back.

"You're doing it wrong, then," Ralph said. "We don't need to convene, the operation hasn't started yet, and that isn't what insertion point means."

"…smartass…" Anne muttered.

"You'll blow our cover!" I said, trying to keep her from doing so. "Getting into character here is undoubtedly valuable, but it should not jeopardize the mission!"

"A mission only involves one person, doesn't it?" Jack asked.

"Well, technically, even an operation involves deployed forces, not civilians…"

"Are we really going to do a semantics debate in the middle of this business?" I asked. "Let us just call it a mission and be done with it."

"But that wouldn't be entirely accurate…" Slick started, but a glare from me quickly silenced him.

"Okay, Anne, tell us about the city hall," I said, wanting to actually do something constructive. "Did you notice anything about it?"

"Well, there was a pretty big crowd around it, but they weren't letting anybody in," she said. "We might have some trouble."

"Don't worry, I'll just make them let us in if they give us trouble," Slick offered, rubbing his hands together.

"You can do that?!" I asked, alarmed. "I would not trust anybody with such power as that, much less you!"

"Hey, I'm very responsible with my abilities," Slick said. "If you're so annoyed at it, I could just make a fake government ID or something."

"Do you know what they look like?" I asked.

"Of course I know what they look like!" Slick sounded indignant, as if I had just insulted him somehow. "You have to know your stuff to get anywhere in the world, and I make sure to know my stuff!"

"How very fortuitous," I said. "Of course, we have just added another felony onto this business."

"They won't be able to pin us for counterfeiting if we never had a physical item," Slick noted. "You also should know about loopholes and what they can do for you. This is important stuff, Berkeley, you should really write this down."

"I have little use for this sort of knowledge," I dismissed. "Ah, there it is!" I pointed ahead of us at the city hall, a grand, shining building of the finest marble and glass, built in the older style, since it was originally built when the city was founded. Of course, it was obvious that it had been retouched at some point or another, but still carried an aura of grandeur and age, a worthy combination for a city such as this. "What a nice building!"

"That's one hell of a place to give a speech," Jack commented. "This ought to be interesting."

"Let's go," Ralph said, and we all started walking towards it. "Try not to break character again."

"Confirmed," Anne said, trying once more. Ralph sagged a bit, but we continued nonetheless, soon finding ourselves at the edge of the crowd. It then became obvious that much of the crowd was less than pleased with the state of affairs, as many of them had signs saying such things as "Foreigners OUT!" or "This is our land, that's yours!" I was unnerved by the display, but Slick seemed not to care, as he walked up to a nearby agent and held up nothing, presumably meant to be his false ID.

"We were sent here as backup," he said, summoning his best acting abilities. Admittedly, he was quite convincing. "We were told the crowd was getting unruly and to go inside the building in case they try to break in."

"About time somebody showed up," he muttered, turning away from us. "There's a way in over there. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir." Slick put his hand back down and we all walked towards the area directed, which had been sectioned off from the massive crowd. We silently passed through, unnoticed by all, and soon found ourselves walking up the far side of the grand steps leading into the building.

"No turning back," Ralph said as we at last came in. The inside of the building was quite expansive, so much so that I nearly felt faint looking up at the roof through a great gap in the floors above, giving a powerful frame of reference for the building's design.

"Time to figure this out," Ralph said. "I'll go above and see if I can find anything, you guys go into the main hall and try to get close to Greeley."

"Positive," Anne said. "Mission is go."

Ralph quickly ran up the stairs to a higher vantage point, while we entered the doors in front of us to see an impressive sight: a colossal hall, filled with people, news stations, and at the very end of it, a stage upon which was Greeley, delivering his speech.

"What are you doing?" another agent asked as we came in.

"We were told to come in as backup because of the crowd outside," Anne explained. This seemed to placate the man, as he quickly turned back to his original position. We all separated, taking positions throughout the room. I chose a spot that allowed me to look straight at Greeley as he was giving his speech. Said speech was not particularly interesting, simply him talking about foreign influence and how it was a positive influence, leaving them with nothing to fear. In fact, he simply repeated that point over and over again, just phrasing it differently or occasionally putting it into a different context. Not terribly complex, but I suppose it made the point, at the very least, and he did have excellent diction.

He continued on for quite some time, eventually coming to a close, applauded well by the audience. I stayed where I was, watching as he walked off the stage, and as soon as he left my sight, I exited the auditorium, but was stopped as none other than Zerus came into the picture and pointed a very small gun straight at my face, unnoticed by anyone else.

"Don't go anywhere, Larch," he said, smiling. "Your funny little illusions don't fool me."

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," I said, trying desperately not to break character. "I'm just a Secret Service agent."

"Nice try, smartass. My men have already captured Ralph up there, and they'll have no trouble getting the rest of your friends."

I faltered, giving away the ruse. "All right, you may have captured them, but we know what you are up to, listening to us, and whatever it is that you are planning, we intend to stop it!"

"And just how do you intend to do that?" Zerus asked, unconvinced.

"Well, despite what you may have convinced yourself of, we are quite an odd bunch, especially Ralph." I grinned and looked up, noticing that several agents were indeed escorting Ralph down. "He is also very well-trained, so I fully expect he will pull something impressive off."

My expectations were more than fulfilled as Ralph dove at one of the men, throwing him over the railing. Said man was barely able to hold on, calling for help, and while his colleagues were distracted, Ralph had an ideal opportunity to escape. He jumped straight for the opportunity and ran down the stairs, drawing gasps from the people below.

"What the hell?" Zerus asked in shock as Ralph ran up to him. We shared a quick glance, and quickly ran back into the auditorium, leaving Zerus alone in his confusion.

"Ditch, guys!" we cried, prompting the group to follow our lead as we ran up to the stage, leaping up and sprinting for the exit. The back of the building, though obviously less grandiose than the front, was still well built, and had an entire park behind it, a fine addition.

"Holy shit!" Jack yelled, as we paused to catch our breath. "I've never felt more alive!"

"Speak for yourself," Slick huffed. "And might I mention that those guys are still after us?"

"Good point," I said, looking around and getting an idea. "We shall go to the park and dispel the illusion so they have no possible way of recognizing us."

"Oh, right!" Slick snapped his fingers and the illusion was no more, although Slick had made himself look like a perfectly average 1850's aristocratic human, and we all ran down into the park and tried to act as casual as possible. Not a few moments after we got into position, Zerus and his agents burst out of the back door and started looking around, finding nothing of justifiable concern. He eyed me, but knew it would be impossible to implicate us for anything. He commanded the agents to do a search of the area, and shot me one last glare before going back inside.

"That was too close," Anne said, walking up to me. "But something is definitely up."

"Up?" Jack asked. "We just committed a federal offense! He has every right to be pissed!"

"Not with the way he reacted," Ralph countered. "He knew we were going to be there, and he knew that we were in disguise. He was prepared for us, but luckily for me, he wasn't entirely prepared."

"And thank god for that!" I cried. "I would much prefer not to do that again."

"I don't think anybody is going to argue," Slick said, allowing his true form to return. "Can we please go back to the hotel and regroup?"

"Well, as you said, I am not going to argue on that point," I said, and without another word, we all started walking back.

()()()

The return to the hotel could not possibly have come soon enough, as we basically collapsed in a heap inside, thankful to find that nothing had been disturbed.

"I've never seen a more beautiful sight!" Slick said, removing his accessories and turning up the Jacuzzi. "It's like water in the desert!"

"Not even close, Slick," Anne admonished. "So, now what?"

"There is a conspiracy afoot, we know that," I began, "and Greeley is at the center of it all, or perhaps even Zerus."

"Why would the vice president be in control of the big conspiracy?" Jack asked. "Surely the president is the mastermind?"

"Unless he's planning to kill Greeley and pin everything on us," Slick suggested, climbing into the hot water. "Greeley might have nothing to do with this."

I glanced at him, realizing he had a valid (if macabre) point. "Of course! With all that hooplah about foreigners, i.e. us, it would be a simple matter to assassinate Greeley and convince the public we were responsible, thus seizing power without any consequences!"

"This is sounding like a terrible thriller novel," Anne said. "That's a ridiculous idea!"

"Oh?" Jack asked. "And I suppose you have a better idea of what happened?"

"Well…no," she admitted. "But you have to admit, that's a farfetched idea."

"That it might be," Ralph said. "But a lot of crazy shit goes on behind the scenes, believe me. With some of the plots I've stopped, this is like somebody stealing a toddler's candy."

"If it is actually the case," I said. "I believe it was Sherlock Holmes that said formulating a complete hypothesis before all the data was known would lead you to disaster. Slick's idea does indeed fit what we know, but there is probably quite a bit that remains unknown to us. Rather than panicking and coming up with theories, we should try to do a more careful job of tracking Greeley and Zerus and figure out what is at the center of all this!"

"Yeah, nice speech, detective," Jack said. "But how are we gonna do that? They found us even when we were in disguise."

"Then we shall be a bit more clever about it." I pulled out one of my PokeBalls and finally released Jon, my Furret.

"Oh, man!" he said, stretching out. "Am I cramped, or what?"

"Jon," I said, turning his attention to me. "Are you willing to follow somebody around for me?"

"Follow somebody?" he asked. "Yeah, sure, why?"

"Said person is the most powerful person in the largest country on the planet," I said, but he did not seem concerned.

"Oh, sweet, a secret mission? Awesome! What do I do?"

"Just follow Mr. Greeley around and tell me what he is doing."

"Who's Greeley?"

"Uh…you will know him when you see him."

"How is he going to relay this?" Jack asked.

"Simple: I will reverse engineer one of those listening devices and use it to spy."

Jack raised his eyebrows and nodded, impressed. "That's a valid idea."

"Indeed, and best of all, they will have no idea whatsoever what is being said."

"Sirs?" the valet suddenly asked, bursting in through the doors. I leapt up, surprised. "Is there anything that you need? Anything at all?"

"No!" I cried, annoyed. "We are perfectly fine!"

"Oh?" the valet asked. "Well, that's too bad." And with that, he pulled out a handgun and pointed it at us, putting us all in a state of terror.

"Now, then," he asked, "are we gonna have to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"