0F: THE LINES ARE NOW OPEN

Lavender is small. Artemis thought Cinnabar was small, but Lavender? Lavender is small. She should have expected it, maybe, since the train was an old-fashioned rail one instead of a maglev, but somehow she wasn't quite expecting this. The train station is just a platform and a closed ticket office at the top of a slope on the north edge of town, and from there the town itself is more or less entirely visible at a glance: a few streets clustered in between the hills; the slim bulk of the historic Pokémon Tower; the pale gleam of the Silent Lake to the south.

It feels uncannily like the woods could sweep down the hills and swallow up Lavender entirely if she looks away for too long. But this, Artemis knows, is nonsense, so she does her best not to think it and keeps her eyes on the street ahead of her instead. They drop their bags at the Centre – separate rooms, in this quiet little place, but at least there don't seem to be many other guests and so Artemis will have a chance to use the bathroom without company – and track down Fuji's home using the map on Cass' phone.

"The signal here is terrible," she complains, waving it around. "Sheesh. Like I know we're in the middle of nowhere out here, but come on. You'd think someone would build a phone mast or two."

Artemis doesn't contribute much to the conversation; she is far, far too nervous for that. But she listens, and feels a little better for Cass' chattering. Pewter girl that she is, the Lavender quiet strikes her as unnerving, and she's glad to hear it broken.

It is an uneventful trip. Once in the residential area where Fuji lives, they pass almost no one else except a man walking his pinsir, and then (all too soon) they are there, standing outside 42 Chesswood Road.

Artemis looks at it. It seems more or less identical to every other house on the street: small, semi-detached, little patch of garden at the front. Somehow, this doesn't seem right, although she can't put her finger on why. Fuji's retired now, isn't he? And even if he wasn't, it's not like he'd have filled his actual house with whatever weird machines you need for genetic engineering.

She takes a breath.

"Well," she says. "Here we are."

A short pause.

"Yep," says Cass.

A longer pause. Brauron climbs up to Artemis' shoulder and does the thing where she drapes herself around her neck. For once, it isn't too warm to be comforting; the air is still cool and a little drizzly with the remnants of the storm.

"I guess we have to go in," says Artemis, reaching up and running a knuckle along Brauron's flank.

"Yep," says Cass again. "Do you, uh, d'you like want me to …?"

She does. She really, really does. But this is her mess, her irradiated body, her conspiracy, and Artemis knows with the full force of all her unreliable belief that she has to do this herself.

"It's okay," she says, pushing open Fuji's garden gate. "I'll manage."

Down the path. Up to the door. Breathe, Artie – and raise your hand – and …

Knock knock.

For a long moment, there's no response, then Artemis hears the shuffling of slippers on carpet and the door opens. He's nowhere near as young as he was when he sat for that portrait hanging in the lab back on Cinnabar, but it's unmistakeably him: Dr Makoto Fuji. A little more shrunken, a little fatter, but still with the same sharp eyes and pencil moustache.

For a brief moment, he stares, in that particular painful way that people do when Artemis appears in front of them, and then he takes control of himself and smiles instead.

"Hello," he says, with surprising warmth. From what Emilia said, Artemis wasn't expecting him to be so welcoming. "Trainers, eh? Here to adopt? Well, come in, come in. Right this way."

Before either of them can say anything, Fuji turns away and shuffles back inside, motioning for them to follow. Artemis takes a second to swallow the little rush of panic at that stare, then, after exchanging looks with Cass, goes in after him, into a strong smell of dog and the clicking sound of a curious pinsir.

"Excuse the mess," says Fuji cheerily, motioning them into what was once a living-room, and technically still is, although the various pokémon living in it appear to have been doing their best to demolish most of the furniture. A couple of growlithe are napping by the bay window; a one-armed pinsir is gnawing the coffee table with its horns; a tigerstripe electabuzz with vivid orange fur lounges on the sofa, one arm hanging off the edge and idly scratching at the woodwork.

"We have a few others, too," Fuji says, with a sharp look at the electabuzz that makes it pause for all of half a second before starting again. "A few upstairs, some in the garden. Do excuse our surroundings – I never really meant to start this shelter, it just sort of happened in my home. But wait, wait; I haven't even asked your names. My apologies. I'm Mr Fuji." (Mr, not Dr?) "And you are …?"

"I'm Cass," says Cass brightly. "This birdbrain here is Ringo."

Ringo screams. One of the growlithe wakes up, yapping; the other simply rolls over and farts loudly.

"Shush, you," says Fuji, glancing at them. "And who might you be?"

"Artemis. And this here is Brauron."

"Pleased to meet you," says Fuji, peering at Brauron and getting hissed at. "I'm not sure I've ever seen one of those before."

"She's a salandit," replies Artemis. "From Alola."

"Wonderful." Fuji smiles. Artemis recognises the expression: slightly relieved, slightly manic. Glad that his encounter with her is going okay, that she has turned out to be a normal human being. People sometimes expect something else of her, for some reason. Or no, not for some reason, Artemis knows exactly why, really; still, it happens, and there's nothing to be gained by making a thing of it so instead she just smiles back at him. "Well, then. As you can see, we've got―"

"Actually," says Artemis, and then falters. "Uh … I mean, actually … we're, um, not here about that."

Fuji's smile grows strained and confused.

"I'm sorry? I don't quite follow. What exactly is this all about?"

"It's … we're kind of in trouble." How can she say it? He's so nice, and he runs a pokémon shelter for god's sake, in his own home no less; he left it all behind, all this awful conspiracy bullshit, and now – now Artemis wants to dredge it up again? Throw him right back into the arms of that terrible memory? "It's … I'm sort of irradiated," she says. Not how she meant to say it, but it's what she's come up with. "With, um … well, with breach radiation."

Fuji does not say anything. He seems to have locked up, face frozen halfway through his smile fading. Behind him, the pinsir and the electabuzz look up, suddenly tensing.

"It's Giovanni Dioli," blurts out Artemis, fighting her panic, not managing to subdue it. "He's triggering breach events – and they're following me and – and I found your diary, I'm sorry, in Cinnabar …"

She runs out of words. The silence grows, thick and cloying and so heavy that it feels like Artemis' skull will cave in under the weight of it, and then Fuji sighs and looks away, raising a hand to his brow.

"I see," he says. "I see. I …" He seems to catch himself before he repeats it again, and feels behind him for the arm of the sofa, to ease himself down into his seat. The electabuzz makes room silently, its gaze unwavering, and the pinsir shuffles a little closer to his feet, clicking its mouthparts in concern. "Forgive me," he murmurs, still not looking at anyone. "I … wasn't expecting that."

Another silence. Artemis feels Brauron pressed up against her neck, but cannot seem to bend her head and look.

"I'm sorry," she says. Her voice sounds too loud, booming in her head like a gunshot. "I know it must be – I mean – I'm sorry."

No response. Cass hovers nervously. After a long, long moment, Fuji breathes out.

"I should really be the one apologising," he says. "It seems my legacy isn't played out yet." He swallows. "Excuse me, could you get me a glass of water?"

"I'll go," says Cass quickly. "Just a sec."

The room feels colder without her. Artemis suppresses a shiver and waits for Fuji to speak. When he does so, it is quiet, almost absent, as if he has forgotten her presence.

"I really thought that that was all over," he says. "After that … it's been ten years." He shakes his head. "I thought they would have shut it down."

"They did," says Artemis. He looks up, startled to see her there, and it takes her a moment to recover. "Uh, um, I mean they did shut it down," she stammers. "I – I've been investigating, kind of, and – and Cinnabar House is abandoned and everything. But Giovanni kept doing it anyway?"

She can't quite help adding the inflection, turning it into a question. Fuji keeps staring, unresponsive, and then finally Cass comes back and hands him some water and the spell breaks.

"Thank you," he says, blinking. "Thank you, miss."

He drinks, and sets the glass down. Afterwards, he looks a little better, and the pinsir and electabuzz untense, settling back down around him.

"It's good to hear that they did shut it down at least," he says. "But I should have known Dioli wouldn't give in. He always seemed very … committed. He was a greater good sort of man. I suppose I was, too. But then … well, that was then." He sighs. "Forgive me. I'm rambling."

"It's okay," says Artemis. "I'm sorry to have brought it up. I just … I really need information, and you're the only lead I have."

The ghost of a smile crosses his face.

"And a sorry sort of lead I am, eh?" he remarks. "Ahem. Do sit down. We should – well, I suppose we should talk."

Cass and Artemis take seats on the other sofa, the pinsir scuttling out of the way of their feet. Ringo flares his wings at it, but Cass gives him a look and he settles down soon enough.

"Cinnabar House," says Fuji. "It was a long time ago, you know. Ten years." He hesitates, lips twitching halfway to a word, and then presses on. "If you found my diary, you know what we were doing."

Artemis nods.

"Yeah. You wanted to make a – a breach entity, is that what they're called?"

"More or less." Fuji sighs. "As I understand it, our work was part of an initiative to command breach, ostensibly so we could better protect against it when it occurred. Someone had an idea that if we could somehow infuse a suitably receptive pokémon with breach powers, and subsequently train it, we would be able to counter breach on its own terms."

"That sounds like a terrible idea," says Cass, and Fuji makes a sound that might, under better circumstances, have been a laugh.

"Yes," he agrees. "Yes, it was."

Silence. Brauron crawls around Artemis' neck and back down to her chest; Artemis puts one hand on her back, feels the warmth against the skin of her palm.

"I don't know if you know of a pokémon called mew," says Fuji. "It's a basal pokémon, in a lot of ways. Some have claimed it is the ancestor of all of them, but of course that's nonsense; almost all have developed independently. There are even records of when klink first appeared, just as the Industrial Revolution began in Europe. It's the symbology of the thing, do you see? Mew are not literally ancestral, but they are representatively ancestral."

Cass is nodding, and a second or two later Artemis sees it too, feeling vaguely embarrassed to have got it after her. She shouldn't – Cass got the scholarship, remember? She's smart – but she feels it anyway.

"Uh huh," Cass says. "Allegorical biology, right?"

Fuji raises his eyebrows. He seems more comfortable now, delivering his little science lesson, and for a brief dizzying moment Artemis can see his younger self overlaid on top of him, discussing some problem with a colleague, scribbling in his journal.

"Quite so," he says. "Remarkable. They didn't teach that in schools back in my day."

Cass shrugs, much to Ringo's disgust.

"I went to a good school," she says neutrally. "So was the mew like your test subject or something?"

Fuji winces.

"Yes," he says. "After a fashion. We obtained a specimen and its DNA was … remarkable. So plastic. Unformed, almost; a nudge here and there and it could have developed into any number of other pokémon. It actually did transform itself on several occasions – not illusions, mind you, physical transformation. Just like a ditto. And we … well, we bred it, via IVF, and made our adjustments to the embryo pre-implantation."

He breaks off and takes a drink of his water. It doesn't quite hide his distress, and Artemis has to fight to squash that sickening tide of guilt rising within her, at forcing an old man to plumb the darkest depths of his sordid past.

"The resultant creature was designated Mew-2," he says, slowly, each word visibly draining something from him. "The M entity, in the case notes of the League investigators. It was … is … staggeringly powerful. Intellect and psionic skills far beyond its parent. Too far. After several months, it came to understand that it was imprisoned, and it … objected."

He says it with a weight that Artemis has never heard in anyone's voice before. She remembers the tone of that last diary entry, the shock and horror; she sees their twins now, in Fuji's eyes and in his voice, and knows that the last ten years have only slightly blunted their edge.

Poor man. She longs to make this better somehow, but she knows all too well that some things cannot be fixed, only dodged, over and over, because if they ever catch up with you everything will be destroyed.

"I'm sorry," she says, hearing the inadequacy of the words even as she says it. "I know it must be hard to talk about it."

Fuji shakes his head slowly.

"No," he says. "No, it's fine. If you have faced breach, then I really have no choice. You are owed some sort of explanation, and god knows you won't get one from anyone else." He sighs. "I can't tell you what breach is, exactly, because I don't know. I only ever had access to data on breach radiation, and you seem to know about that already."

"It attracts breach," says Artemis. He nods.

"Yes. It does. Breach corrupts what it touches. It weakens reality, and that means breach can happen again more easily. But it does not usually happen without a cause, I know that much. There must be a trigger."

"So if there is a way to stop Giovanni doing this …" begins Cass.

"Then the events will stop too, yes."

A pause. The growlithe are asleep again; the electabuzz scratches lazily at its belly. Outside, a bird that Artemis doesn't recognise is singing in a pear tree.

"I should finish the story," says Fuji. "Mew-2 broke out, as you know. I was one of very few survivors. It … allowed me to leave. I still see it, now and then. In the middle of the night, sometimes, I wake and it's there, it's just standing there, watching―" He cuts himself off abruptly, forces down another sip of water. Artemis can feel Cass trying not to stare. "I haven't been able to work out whether or not it's a hallucination," he says. "I feel as if it may be keeping an eye on me."

"I know the feeling," says Artemis, and something of her pain must show, because Fuji looks at her sharply, and then sadly.

"You do, don't you?" he says. "I'm sorry."

She shakes her head.

"It's okay. I'm used to it."

Another pause, this one the calm, almost soothing pause of shared experience. Cass shifts uncomfortably in her seat, obviously aware that the moment does not include her.

Eventually, Fuji speaks.

"I mention all this," he says, "because Mew-2 is still out there. And it is reasonable, I think, no matter what it did to us. And there aren't very many things in Kanto capable of challenging the power of the League, let alone of breach."

Artemis' heart skips a beat. She thought that was just something that happened in books but there it is, a nauseating murmur in her chest that makes her breath catch and her gorge rise.

"You … you think we should talk to it?" she asks, hoping she's misunderstood him.

"No," says Fuji. "I couldn't ask you to do that; it's far too dangerous. But I also think that if you wanted to stop breach, you would need something equally strong. And I am afraid that I can't provide you with that."

"But – it's a monster," says Cass. "You said yourself, it killed everyone―"

"Everyone who had a hand in its creation or abuse, yes." Fuji won't meet their eyes, is keeping his gaze on the pinsir, chewing the table leg again. "But it hasn't killed anyone since. Not in ten years, and I've been keeping a very close eye on the news for reports of unsolved cases in the area where I believe it's been hiding. I think it's just trying to live its life now. As best it can."

"Wait, you know where it is?"

"I think I do. When it comes to me at night – if it comes to me – I can feel its mind." Fuji is speaking faster now, the words stumbling over one another in their rush to leave his mouth. He's been carrying this for a long time, Artemis can tell, so long that he might even have told this to Emilia if she'd come, just because she would believe him and he desperately needs this thought outside his head. "It's there, it's – I can sense it, you see, it's a psychic-type, and it – it's as if it's taunting me, or – or trying to reach out, I don't know, or – but the point is it's somewhere north of Cerulean. Up in the hills. And it―"

He stops, as if someone has flicked a switch. Artemis waits, trembling a little with fear and anticipation, but nothing follows. Fuji is a statue of himself, still and silent.

"Mr―?"

"It's lonely," he says abruptly, silencing Cass mid sentence. "I don't think it wants or intends me to see it but it's so terribly lonely."

Nobody says a word. Artemis wonders if Fuji is right, or if he is only seeing in Mew-2 what he is too afraid to see in himself. She hates that she's second-guessing him like this, but it's difficult not to. Too many conversations with psychiatrists.

"You're right," says Fuji suddenly. "You're right, of course. I couldn't ask you to go and speak to it. But I'm afraid that I can't tell you anything that I haven't already said, and I don't know what more I can offer. I was only involved in the Mew-2 project, I don't know anything about the structure of the organisation – beyond its long-term goal of harnessing breach, that is. I can't ask you to go and find Mew-2. In fact, I'm going to recommend you don't. I really can't impress upon you how dangerous it is. On par with the legendary birds, if not stronger." He shakes his head again, decisively. "Forgive me. You're already in a lot of danger, and I really shouldn't be going making that worse."

Artemis hesitates for a moment, not sure how to respond, and then says:

"It's okay. I think I understand. It's all you can do, right?"

Fuji sighs, more out of anger at himself than out of sorrow.

"I'm afraid so," he says bitterly. "The League won't help you. I wonder if Giovanni really has gone rogue, or if they're just saying that to distance themselves from what he's doing. Wouldn't put it past them."

It had occurred to Artemis, but so far she had been doing a decent job of pushing the thought away, squashing it down into the back of her head with the ghost people and the other dark ideas that haunt her. Now it comes rushing back out, a bleak wave of suspicion that makes her heart pound and the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It could be, she thinks. It could be that the conspiracy goes even deeper, and the League is hiding Giovanni, and that's why Emilia's investigation is going nowhere. Or no, Emilia herself might only be investigating to keep up the pretence that Giovanni's gone rogue, might herself be part of the plot―

No. Stop it, Artie. She unclenches her fists, stares resolutely at her chipped purple nails. Emilia is on her side. She has to be. Giovanni may or may not be rogue, but Emilia is a good person. Hopefully.

Her hands are doing the thing where they don't look real. She keeps on looking at them, and tries to pick up the thread of what Fuji is saying.

"… no," he continues, "there's no help coming from that quarter. And I quite honestly cannot think of anyone else in Kanto who would even believe you, let alone be minded to help. Mew-2 hates the League more than anyone, and I can't say that it's wrong."

"I think I get it," says Cass. "You really think it would work with us like that?"

"I don't know," replies Fuji. "But I think that if I were it, I would."

Emilia wakes the next day to a Saffron made cool and grey by the fading remnants of the storm, a few thin drops of rain pattering against her bedroom window. Something feels different about this morning, and after a moment she remembers yesterday: the trip up to Cerulean, the graveyard, the talk with Sam. The certainty and the calm determination that followed.

"Right," she says aloud, and throws the covers back. Time to get to work.

She dresses, checks on Effie (no change) and makes herself coffee, sitting in the kitchen so as to minimise distractions.

"Right," she says again. "Giovanni. Let's do this. I can't come at him directly. Why not? No League support. Is other support available? No. So you come at him from another angle. What could you do that won't require the League?" This question takes a while, and a second cup of coffee, but Emilia is in a problem-solving mood, and soon enough her mind bulldozes through it like all the others. "Disrupt the actual running of his operations," she answers. "How? Leak it. You have media contacts, don't you? Use them. Okay. What are the potential problems here? One, nobody's going to believe me – I'll have to find some sort of evidence. Two, Giovanni's response might well be to make Artemis' identity public. Three, I'm definitely not going to get my job back if I do this."

She pauses here for a moment, as she has to; she wouldn't be human if this didn't matter, the burning of these bridges that she has spent so much of her life building. But she can't see a way to avoid it: the League won't employ someone to cover up secrets if she's making a habit of blowing those secrets open, and the second they see the story in the news they'll know it was her who did it.

And, in the end, and with all due consideration and respect to all parties involved – fuck the League, right? Emilia is tired of pretending not to notice the disconnect between her politics and her job, tired of pandering to that special fear power has of powerlessness. Time to be an angry leftie radical again, like when she was a student. Yes, they'll fire her. They'll probably even arrest her; this is illegal in the kind of way that leads to people spending a long, long time behind bars. But Effie is dying and Artemis is in trouble, and Emilia is in a position to make things happen and she's damned if she's not going to take it.

So.

Third cup of coffee.

"Let's take the second one first," she says. "That's the most immediate issue. How will Giovanni respond? He'll be tied up in an investigation, for sure. But he might try to dismiss it with Artemis' psychosis, like he did with Lorelei. What if he makes her name public?"

This one's an issue. It takes her a moment to think out her response; Artemis is already in danger, and Emilia absolutely cannot do anything that might make that worse.

"It doesn't seem tactically advantageous for him," she answers. "Her friend Cass has seen this stuff too, after all. All it would take is for someone to believe the two of them for long enough to check for breach radiation, and if I do manage to get someone to print the story, they will believe, at least for a little bit. And at that point, things get messy, fast, because if he's doing this then the state can't not prosecute."

It's not a sure thing. But it never is, is it, so that's going to have to do. Emilia puts down her cup and gets up, trying to pace away a sudden rush of nervous energy.

"So Artemis is probably safe," she says, hoping to convince herself. "Next: how do we get around the evidence thing?" By this point Nadia has come in to join her, pecking at seeds on the counter and occasionally nudging the direction of her thoughts with her own. "We'll need two things. Someone willing to believe, and a way of convincing them; it won't matter what sort of proof we have if the person we take it to refuses to admit breach is a possibility. Can we find either of those two things? The proof might be hard, but I can definitely find the person. Who, then? Simple."

Emilia takes a breath. The whole course of her thinking so far has led up to this moment, to making this leap away from the old order and into something new. It's a big leap, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't apprehensive about it. But it's time.

"Simple," she says again. "Mark Trelawney."

She has to take a moment to appreciate what she's just said. So too does Nadia, who despite the fact that she quite literally saw this coming is still surprised to actually hear her say it. Mark Trelawney. He's been chasing League secrets for as long as she's been hiding them; he even did a piece on the M entity breaking containment, back when they were both just starting to make names for themselves. Emilia has read it. It comes uncannily close to the truth, for something written by a guy who doesn't know what breach is.

An old enemy, then. But only if Emilia still has a job. And given that she probably won't by the time all this is done, it might be time to start thinking of him as an ally.

"Okay," she says. "Even he isn't going to believe in breach without any evidence. So, what do we have?"

Nadia jumps in with a couple of helpful memories: the email Emilia photographed, the transcript of Artemis' testimony from the Pewter incident that she still has a copy of. Not a lot, honestly, and nothing decisive – especially given the uncertain state of Artemis' mental health. But combine it with the fact that it will be Emilia herself delivering it, coming to him with desperation and a burning desire to take down the League, and it might be enough to win him over. The question is, whether that's enough to be publishable, and Emilia rather suspects that it isn't. Mark might believe her, but it isn't just him she needs on side. It's an editor, and, after that, the Kantan public.

"We'll need a plan," she says, thinking aloud. "Once I make contact with him, I'll need to show him there's a way into all this. What's that way in?" She hesitates, for once unable to answer herself, and glances at Nadia. "Any ideas?"

Nadia considers, and then dials up a memory for her: a worried face on the other side of a table in the back room of Pewter Gym, as dark and anxious as Emilia's own.

So, the Gym does like appointments with trainers to help you catch your first pokémon, right, and I came in yesterday for one of those …

"Artemis? You already mentioned the testimony, Nadia. And I believe it, of course, but given what Lorelei said about her mental health, I'm not sure we can expect anyone else to. Not when it's so much easier to not believe it."

Nadia beams a swift pulse of negativity into her head, indicating that she has somehow misinterpreted things, then tries again: this time, Emilia feels herself momentarily back in the courtyard of the hotel in Cinnabar, taking Artemis' call.

Hello, Artemis. I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon.

I guess I wasn't expecting to call you, either. I … I'm really sorry, I didn't tell you everything …

"Because she called me?" asks Emilia, snapping back to the present like the cord of a slingshot. "Because … because I have her number, right!"

It's kind of brilliant, actually; Giovanni and Abigail have come up with the idea for her. They have Cass calling them up whenever a breach event happens – well, Emilia can just ask Artemis to do the same. And if she can get access to the next breach event as and when it happens – and if the cops don't know she's been suspended – she could maybe use her League card to bluff her way onto the scene to show Mark …

"Nadia, you're the best." Emilia gets up, mind suddenly buzzing with potential actions. "Right. Phone calls. I should arrange a meeting with Mark, and then―"

HOLD, says Nadia, hopping closer. EAT.

Emilia hesitates, half out of her seat. For a moment, she considers arguing, claiming that time is of the essence – but as soon as she thinks it she has to admit that it isn't, really. Mark won't be able to meet right away; she saw him on Cinnabar, and even if by some miracle he has a rideable pokémon approved for flight over Kanto he probably isn't back yet. And Artemis – well, Artemis is nineteen. When Emilia was nineteen, she considered it an injustice if she had to get up before noon.

You're not with the League now, she reminds herself. You don't need to rush.

She sighs and sits back down again. Nadia is right: one thing at a time, Emilia. There will be time to be a subversive activist later. Today, first of all – breakfast.

When Emilia switches her phone back on a few hours later – it has been off ever since she ignored Lorelei's attempt to contact her the night before last – she has several missed calls: one from Lorelei, several more from Lorelei's PA, Yasmin. She briefly considers calling back, and then decides that that can wait until after she's spoken to more important people.

Mark first, and his number goes straight to voicemail; he must be busy. Emilia curses silently and does her best to leave an intriguing message.

"Mark, it's Emilia Santangelo. Normally I wouldn't do this, but normal isn't cutting it any more, so I think I have something for you. Something big. I don't want to say any more over the phone, so call me back when you get this and we'll arrange a meeting."

She cringes a little at the normal isn't cutting it any more, once she actually hears herself saying it, but it's too late now, the words are out there and winging their way through the ether to Mark's ear, and so she simply sticks with it and calls up Artemis instead. This just doesn't work; Emilia listens to the robot voice telling her the number can't be reached right now, tries again, and after failing a couple more times decides she'll wait until later. Possibly Artemis is still on the ferry, temporarily cut off from the comforting radio links of modernity; possibly she's just somewhere where the signal isn't great. Either way, Emilia can wait. As long as she makes contact with Artemis before the next breach event occurs, things should be fine.

Which leaves her without anything else to do. For a while, Emilia hangs around in her apartment, dithering over whether or not to call Lorelei or Yasmin; then she decides that to hell with it, she's just going to ignore them. It's not like she's ever going back to the League, not if she's really going to do this. (She thinks this several times without noticing the repetition or sensing the anxiety beneath it.) Yes, Lorelei's handling of the situation hurts, considering their history – but there's nothing to be done. Clean break, Emilia. You need to stop thinking of yourself as a League woman.

These thoughts circle her head like sharks around a stricken lifeboat. Emilia gets on with her day, such as it is; she goes to the gym, has lunch at the Korean restaurant two blocks away, gets a couple of books out of the library for the first time in months. The thoughts follow her every step of the way, and when her phone finally rings later that afternoon, she is so relieved at the distraction that she almost forgets to check it isn't Lorelei before answering.

"Santangelo," says Mark Trelawney, crackly and quiet with distance. "You can't go calling people up and leaving them intriguing messages like that. All this excitement isn't good for my heart."

Emilia smiles.

"I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't make things hard for you," she says, slipping back into her usual voice. "Speaking of which, I wasn't calling in a professional capacity. All of this is, let us say, unsanctioned." She pauses, to let this sink in. "I'm done protecting the League," she tells him, although she half suspects she is really just telling herself. "This was always ethically dubious, but things have gone too far. So, Mark. How would you like to hear some state secrets?"

A long silence. Mark breathes out slowly.

"This doesn't even sound like you," he says. His voice is measured, appraising. Nadia, listening in through Emilia's ears, cocks her head on one side attentively. "What did you have in mind?"

"Where are you right now?"

"Cinnabar still. Why?"

"Can you get to Saffron? I'd like to speak to you in person."

"Sure," says Mark. "My partner can get me back by tonight – if this is serious."

Emilia almost laughs, but she knows it will come out harsh and hysterical if she does, so she holds back.

"Oh, it's serious," she says. "I can promise you that."

He sighs. Sounds frustrated, but interested.

"What the hell are you even talking about, Santangelo?"

"Meet me in King Nolan's Square at nine and find out," she says. "And Mark? My name's Emilia."

A hesitation: graceless, protracted. An outward exhalation.

"All right, Emilia," says Mark. "I'll see you then."

"Good. See you then."

Click. Emilia lowers the phone; Nadia gives her a look.

"What?" she asks, voice sliding back in time again. "I have a name. I filed the paperwork to have it changed. I like to get some use out of it."

Nadia tilts her head in what Emilia knows she considers an endearingly innocent way. In response, Emilia wrinkles her nose.

"I'm not talking to you," she says, picking up her library book again. "I'm reading."

She busies herself in reading, but no matter how fiercely she concentrates, she can't squash her sense of Nadia on the fringes of her mind, pecking at the idea that Emilia might benefit from talking to someone who isn't either dead or a bird.

There isn't much else that Mr Fuji can say. He wavers back and forth between telling them to find Mew-2 and forbidding them from doing so for some time longer, but it seems like he was telling the truth when he said he didn't know anything more that might help them. In the end, after it becomes clear they're talking in circles, Artemis thanks him for his time and offers to give his journal back. He does not want it, which kind of makes sense really, so she stands up to leave. He walks her and Cass to the door, moving like a man much older than he is, and when they say goodbye he clasps her hand awkwardly in his own.

"Good luck," he says, while Artemis desperately tries to conceal her panic at being suddenly grabbed. "If there is anything else I can do …"

"We'll let you know," says Cass, catching Artemis' eye and gently insinuating herself between her and Fuji, so he has to let go. (Pathetic, fervid gratitude, drowning out for a moment any sense of whether or not she can trust her.) "Thanks, Mr Fuji. You've, uh, really given us a lot to think about."

"I only wish I could do more," he replies. "Goodbye, then …"

The way he trails off makes him sound almost as if he doesn't want them to leave. It must be a relief, being able to talk about it at last, after all this time. Artemis feels for him, although (she is ashamed to admit) not enough to want to stay any longer.

"Goodbye," she says, finding her voice again. "Thank you."

They walk away in silence, down the path and right along the street, until they hear the sound of the door closing. Then Cass glances at Artemis.

"So like … are you okay?"

Good question. Artemis reviews the situation: she's been told the only person who can help her now is a genetically-engineered breach monster with a history of murderous violence; she's accidentally revealed she has hallucinations to Cass after she spent so long trying to hide it; her heart is currently going ninety miles an hour because her body is pointlessly terrified of human contact.

It's not looking great, honestly. But what else is new?

"I dunno," she says. "I guess?" Pause. Should she say something about the hallucinations? She can't tell. "Uh … I guess you probably worked out I still haven't told you everything, right."

"What? Like about your mental health? Yeah. Yeah, I … kinda couldn't help but hear that." It almost sounds like Cass is apologising for it, which is so backwards that it's very nearly funny. "I mean it's okay if like you don't wanna say. 'S personal. You know?"

Artemis sighs.

"I had a big psychotic episode a while back," she says. "Hallucinations and delusions and stuff. But like I still – I mean, I'm not – I mean, I don't know."

It's hard to pick the right words. Many doctors have told her that they don't believe she's schizophrenic, that she's too high-achieving and functional for that, that she's depressed with some psychotic symptoms; more than a few others are very adamant that she is schizophrenic, are baffled that anyone would think otherwise. Others still have other opinions, because after all with the right combination of medication and therapy she can downgrade her delusions from concrete reality to malleable belief, and so often it has devolved into them arguing and arguing over what name to give the thing in her head while she sat there and listened and wished they would just tell her instead what they could do to help.

"I guess I'm just fucking crazy," she says, with a bitterness that she immediately regrets. Cass looks at her, and then away again, not knowing what to say; Artemis sighs and apologises.

"No, it's okay," says Cass. "I guess it must be hard to talk about."

"I'm not imagining breach, though," says Artemis, too quickly, filled with a sudden desperate need to make sure Cass knows this. "I'm not, I – all that really happened, there are other witnesses―"

"It's okay," repeats Cass. "It's okay. I know that. I … well, I saw it. That weird glitch-looking guy."

"Right," says Artemis. "Right."

Silence. It occurs to both of them that they have stopped walking.

"C'mon," says Cass. "Let's go back to the Centre, okay? And let's … I dunno, watch a movie or something. I don't think we're gonna be able to make a decision about what to do next today."

Artemis can't look at her. She just can't. But she says okay, and touches Brauron to feel the comforting warmth of her, and together all four of them make their way back through the quiet streets to the Pokémon Centre.

She is grateful, but she doesn't think she can say it without the ugliness of her emotion showing, and so she says nothing at all.

The day plays out weirdly, like a movie of itself. Artemis has a brief and unsatisfying cry in the bathroom, repairs the damage to her make-up, and then goes out with Cass to find Lavender's single cinema, where they watch the only thing showing, an Unovan film about two vapidly pretty white people falling in love. It's subtitled in Kantan, but Cass speaks some English, and manages to make it entertaining by cheerfully mistranslating everything that anyone says. One minor character, a friend of the female lead, says something in an early scene that sounds uncannily like two Kantan words, columnar dog, and she becomes in Cass' retelling the Columnar Dog Lady, her every appearance heralding an update on her search for fluted Ionic canines.

It is very childish, but what the hell, it's funny, and soon Columnar Dog Lady steals the show, her tiny subplot expanding until it crowds out the main story and builds to a dramatic conclusion in which her driving of the female lead off on a last-minute mission to catch the male lead before he leaves the country becomes a grim car chase where she attempts to escape the owner of the dog she has currently stashed in her back seat. At the film's end, there is actually a dog onscreen for a moment, in the background of the reunion scene, and both Cass and Artemis burst into helpless, ridiculous laughter, spluttering column dog, it's the bloody columnar dog, she found it at the screen in a way that would probably have got them kicked out if there were anyone else watching with them.

How long has it been since Artemis last let herself be loud – take up space, make noise, be an inconvenience? It feels like ever since she decided she was a girl, or even ever since she started seeing ghost people, she has been trying to be small, quiet, unobjectionable. This is a release, and okay some of this laughter verges on the hysterical but it is, nevertheless, laughter, and it is like the purifying cold of a mountain stream.

Or what she imagines that's like, anyway. Artemis has never actually even seen a mountain stream, much less bathed in one, but whatever, that's not the point. She leaves the cinema smiling, watching Ringo waking up in confusion as they go from the twilight of Screen Two to the bright evening light, and only much later, long after they have got back and eaten their subpar meal in the almost-deserted Centre cafeteria, long after Cass has started falling asleep in front of the TV in the lounge, long after Brauron is asleep next to her bed and Artemis has lulled herself to sleep staring at the glow of her tail in the dark – only then, after all this, does breach return to her.

In her dream, she gets out of her bed, although at the same time she does not; it is one of those dreams in which you feel your back against the mattress the whole time, suspended between realities like a cobweb between two branches, ready to tear one way or another with the slightest movement of either. But one of her selves, at least, gets up and wanders out of the room, into the dull glow of the safety lights in the corridor, down the stairs and out into a darkness so profound that it cannot be night in Lavender, has to be somewhere else, somewhere without sky or ground, into the depths of which Artemis drifts like a toy car shunted across a hardwood floor, without aim or purpose.

In the middle of the dark, there is a light, an awful burning thing that spits and flares and sings something that is no kind of song she can name. When she starts to approach it, Artemis begins to panic, thinking that this is another nightmare, but then she takes a beat and the fear passes into the flat non-emotion of dream.

Breach, says the spire. There has been a breach.

Artemis says something, she isn't sure what. A question, maybe, because the spire seems to answer.

Here and now, it says. I stride the blast; I am the post-horn.

Artemis says something else. It seems reasonable to her.

Marked, croons the spire, crackling upwards into the dark. I mark the caesura. Then, in response to whatever it is Artemis says next: The jack of hearts. A breach. There has been a breach.

"… this?" Artemis catches the last word of it this time, though the rest of the words slip away. The spire contracts, expands, whispers in a voice as cold as deep space into her head.

We are of the volta, it says. You and I and they. We live in the moment between things. Angels of the breach. Of the breach. The breach.

It burns brighter and brighter, so bright that if she were awake she would have to close her eyes, except of course that she is asleep and so her eyes are already closed and all she can do is keep looking into the impossible, awful light, looking until the world is a bleached mess of aching red―

Artemis is woken by the pain, a sudden headache like a vice being tightened around her temples. She lies there for a moment, stunned, trying to remember what it was she was dreaming about, and then she hears something, or imagines she does, and she gets up and peeks through the gap between curtain and window.

Down there in the street, something is moving. It is broad and flat and the light from the streetlamp doesn't fall on it properly, as if it has been badly photoshopped into the scene. It moves back and forth, a coruscating field of distorted air like the ghost of TV static, and then it slinks away down the street, pressing itself low to the ground like a cat on the prowl.

Artemis stares. She touches her face, feels blood.

Through the crippling pain in her head, she thinks she can make out the smell of burning.