Two
D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 6
CLEARANCE ACCEPTED.
DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT
DESIGNATION: THE PANDORA TAPES, FILE 02
DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPTION OF VIDEO OBTAINED FROM VALENCIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE ON VALENCIA ISLAND, ORANGE ARCHIPELAGO. TAPE FEATURES INTERVIEW BETWEEN PROFESSOR PHILENA IVY AND SPECIMEN 2000LH-B/01, CODENAME PANDORA.
DATE-TIME: 04/09/01, 16:54
[PANDORA LIES ON A COT IN V.R.I.'S STANDARD OBSERVATION ROOM. STATUS OF SPECIMEN IDENTIFIED AS "STAGE II." SKIN HAS TURNED PALE. HAIR LOSS IS BEGINNING TO OCCUR. CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURES HAVE GROWN ON SUBJECT'S SHOULDERS AND ARMS. OTHER FEATURES APPARENTLY COMMON TO SE-650-1 HAVE YET TO OCCUR.]
IVY
[REDACTED], I know it's hard for you right now, but I need to ask you a few questions that will help us figure out what's going on. Do you think you can answer them for me?
[PANDORA NODS.]
IVY
Good. How are you feeling?
PANDORA
I'm so cold, professor. It's so cold.
IVY
It's your skin. You're starting to develop the traits of an ice-type.
PANDORA
An ice-type? [PAUSE—PANDORA SOBS] Is it going to stop?
IVY
We-we don't know yet. Can you feel anything other than cold? How is the bite?
PANDORA
It hurts too, professor.
IVY
I'm sorry, [REDACTED]. We're going to try to fix this. I promise.
PANDORA
Professor … she spoke to me last night.
IVY
What?
PANDORA
That … that thing spoke to me last night. On my ankle.
IVY [ALARMED]
What do you mean 'spoke to you'? What did it say?
[PANDORA SCREAMS AND CONVULSES ON THE COT. IVY REACHES TO GRASP HER ARM.]
IVY
[REDACTED]? [REDACTED]! It's okay! I'm here! [LOOKS OVER HER SHOULDER] Get the med-kit! Now!
PANDORA
Professor!
[IVY TURNS BACK TO PANDORA AND LEANS OVER HER.]
IVY
Yes. Yes, I'm here. It's going to be okay.
PANDORA [PANTING]
Professor. Professor, she said … she said …
IVY
Yes? What did she say?
[PANDORA CALMS. SUBJECT LOOKS DIRECTLY AT THE CAMERA.]
PANDORA
Let us be.
[PANDORA CLAWS IVY'S FACE. IVY SCREAMS. SHE TWISTS IN HER CHAIR AND ATTEMPTS TO STAND. FIVE ASSISTANTS RUN INTO THE SHOT AND OBSCURE PANDORA AND IVY EXCEPT FOR IVY'S FACE. IVY'S HANDS COVER HER EYES. BLOOD RUNS ALONG THE LEFT SIDE OF HER JAWLINE. TWO ASSISTANTS GRASP IVY'S ELBOWS AND LEAD HER AWAY, AND THE REMAINING THREE ASSISTANTS STAND BESIDE PANDORA'S COT. TWO HOLD HER DOWN WHILE THE THIRD APPLIES A HYPODERMIC NEEDLE TO HER LEFT ARM. PANDORA SCREAMS. AN UNIDENTIFIABLE APPENDAGE RISES FROM HER LEFT SIDE AND SLASHES AT THE NECK OF THE LAST MENTIONED ASSISTANT.
VIDEO RECORDING CEASES. END FILE 02.]
—
In the minutes it took to walk to their destination, Bill took careful inventory of the situation.
One, he and a young man he barely knew—an assistant he was apparently responsible for—were being dragged through the otherwise empty hallway of Polaris Institute by three strangers.
Two, the strangers in question were built unlike any lab assistant Bill had ever encountered. According to Bill's rough estimate, the shortest was six feet tall with a shoulder span of three or four feet. Normally, Bill wasn't the kind of person to analyze a person's measurements, but this particular gentleman was the one clamping a large, beefy hand over his mouth. He couldn't help but notice that the man was a bit larger than the average lab assistant as a result.
Which led to the the third point: that all three ostensible kidnappers had massive frames because most of their bodies seemed to consist of pure muscle. He didn't actually come to that conclusion by looking at his captors; it actually came to him by the feeling of the short one's palm against his face. Each finger tensed around his jaw and held his chin up, and his neck throbbed with an ache at its back. Judging by the grip, Bill knew that it was a threat. One wrong move from him, and the man would most likely twist his head clean off his shoulders in a single easy gesture.
Because of that, Bill remained silent. Joel, much to Bill's dismay, wasn't quite as cautious, opting instead to thrash and scream against the hands of the other two strangers. Every so often, Bill glanced at him from the corner of his eye as he struggled to come up with a plan, but no matter how much he knew he needed to get Joel out of this, nothing came to mind. Any plan that nearly surfaced in his brain ultimately ended with the both of them beaten on the floor at best. After all, while Bill couldn't speak for Joel, he could tell by the assistant's panicking nature and shaking limbs that Joel was by no means a fighter. Bill himself wasn't much of one either; he never really considered the possibility of training himself past a few self-defense lessons in college and the occasional kung fu movie. Besides that, he had no weapons or pokémon on him. Even if he had brought his own, they would have been confiscated by security at the first checkpoint according to the institute's safety policies.
In short, they were screwed.
The seconds felt like hours to Bill as he let himself be led along the hallway. Besides Joel's screaming, the group was silent, almost eerily so to Bill. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes every so often as he went over his mental inventory over and over again. His brain struggled to grasp a possible weak moment, a possible opening that either of them could take advantage of. Someone was depending on him, after all. Joel needed him to come up with something. Anything.
Instead, what he got was an abrupt stop. Opening his eyes, he realized that his captors stood in front of a metal door with nondescript black box attached to the wall beside it. The door looked just like every other in the complex, but this one was painted with a single letter in bright, fresh white—a single letter that made Bill's heart freeze.
F.
They were at the door of the ixodida holding cell.
"Oh-nine gave us clearance, right?" the largest of the men asked gruffly.
Bill could hear the rustle of fabric just behind him. Then, his captor's free hand lifted a plastic ID badge to the black box.
"Of course she did, moron," the captor's gruff voice responded.
The man tapped the card to the box, and it beeped in response. He pulled Bill aside, keeping his hand clamped tightly on the researcher's mouth as he leaned towards the device on the wall. It slid open, revealing the glint of a lens just under its thick, plastic lid. The assistant positioned his face in front of the lens and stared deep into the blinking, red light beyond it. With a red flash, the device trailed a beam down the man's eye before slowly drawing its plastic lid back into place.
In the next second, the door clicked, and when his captor threw it open, Bill knew any chance he and Joel had of escaping was as good as gone. The moment in which his captor and one of the other men snatched both of his arms and literally threw him into the room only seemed to highlight that fact to him.
He crashed down on hard vinyl, and pain jarred his body. Groaning, he pushed himself to his hands and knees, only to flinch when he heard the door shut and lock. But just as he braced himself for the attack he was predicting, Bill realized his captors had opted to stand just behind him, leaving him untouched on the floor. When he lifted his head to take a look at who else was in the laboratory with them, he suddenly knew why.
There were ten people besides the three captors occupying the room. From the looks of their blue scrubs, Bill could tell that all of them were lab assistants, but the thing that made him uneasy was that all of them had their eyes fixed steadily on him. But there was one at the front, a petite blonde with sharp, purple eyes, who glared the hardest.
"You're late." She paused, and her eyes narrowed. "And those are two."
Behind Bill, Joel squeaked.
"S-sorry, 009," one of the captors stammered. "We couldn't decide which one was Anderson."
Anderson. They were specifically looking for Joel. Bill looked over his shoulder with his mouth slightly open. Joel stood trembling, his eyes flitting desperately from Bill to 009 and back. These people were specifically looking for Joel, and Bill led him right to them.
Abruptly, a set of long fingers ensnared Bill's hair, and sharp nails dug into his scalp. He bit back yet another shout as the hand yanked his head until he stared deep into narrow purple eyes.
"This is a professor," she hissed. Shoving Bill's head away from her, 009 put her hands on her hips and glared once more at her subordinates. "You were ordered to capture an assistant. How did you manage to mistake him for one?"
"Well," the shortest of the captors replied, "I-I mean, we just sort of grabbed 'em both as soon as we saw 'em, so we really didn't look—"
"Who is he?"
"We, uh, hadn't searched him yet, but—"
"I don't care. Give me his ID."
Bill felt a hand snatch his arm. He didn't look at the grunt who grabbed him. Instead, he tried to yank his arm away while keeping his eyes on Joel. Bill knew this was a desperate situation, and even he had to admit he wasn't the bravest person in existence. Yet he also knew he would be responsible for whatever they did to Joel, so he needed to do something. Anything.
So for the first time he could remember, he silenced the tiny voice in his head that insisted he was about to do something stupid. He yanked his arm out of the stranger's reach, turned his head back to the blonde, and gave her a steady, confident glance.
"Let me save you time," he said. "Bill McKenzie. I've been assigned to the ethology team."
"Clearly, considering Anderson is with—" 009 stopped. "Hold on. Bill McKenzie? Don't tell me you're the creator of the storage system."
It took effort on Bill's part not to smirk at the possible opening.
"Co-creator with Lanette Chastain, yes," he answered.
009 sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead. "Giovanni is going to love this."
At that, Bill smiled. It was definitely an opening. "I'm sure we can negotiate. I don't know what it is you want, but if you let Mr. Anderson go, I can arrange something."
And then, 009 smiled, and Bill felt his skin crawl. The problem was that 009's smile made her look young, like a girl no older than fourteen. But there was something in the way her lips curled, in the way she squinted her purple eyes, in the way she showed just a little too much of her teeth that made Bill think of arbok slowly circling a rattata. There was venom in that expression, but it came slathered with sugar.
"Oh no," she answered sweetly. "You really don't understand. Our boss is only interested in your friend over there because he's perfect for our needs. He's not really all that interested in you. Not for this purpose, anyway. So you see, even if we could strike some kind of deal where you'd come with us, we'd still have to take Mr. Anderson over there too! Majorly inconvenient, no?"
They needed Anderson. Bill couldn't use anything he had as leverage to get either of them out of trouble. His smile faded, and so did what little confidence he possessed when he started into his plan.
"And who is 'we'?" he asked, this time nearly inaudible.
"Team Rocket, of course!" 009 exclaimed.
Bill felt as if the floor dropped out beneath him. He had heard of Team Rocket—briefly, largely through news reports. Who in Kanto hadn't? At one point, it felt like there was another report about a robbery or a poaching or the destruction of public property with Team Rocket's name plastered all over each act. But he never imagined kneeling there, right in front of an entire group of them.
And these, he realized, were people who wanted Joel specifically.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two of the burly agents pull Joel to the side. One of them finally removed his hand from Joel's mouth, prompting the assistant to scream and thrash again.
"Let me go!" he shouted. "Let me go! Professor McKenzie, help!"
Bill flashed another glance towards him before turning his eyes back to 009. Despite how loud Joel was, she was still smiling.
"Isn't this place off the hook?" she asked. "So high tech, don't you think? All the walls are soundproofed, and all the doors are secure. You can scream all you want, and no one will hear you!"
"W-what?" Bill stammered.
At the sound of his voice, 009 turned her smile back to him. "It's totally true, though! It's made our job so much easier. All we had to do was pick a time when no one would be out in the hall and send a few escorts out to meet Mr. Anderson! And even if he screamed in the hallway, not a single person would hear him … so long as the place was deserted, anyway." She snickered. "Isn't it stupid, though? All those precious resources going into designing the perfect research facility, just so you bookworms won't be interrupted by a little noise. If you ask me, you all are so drab it's almost entertaining to watch."
With some effort, Bill struggled to stand, only to have two Rocket agents dart forward and grab his arms.
"Anderson. What … what are you going to do with him?" he asked. "What do you want from him?!"
009 flicked her wrist, and a black tulip slid free from her sleeve. Turning her head slightly, she hid her smile behind the blossom and shifted her eyes to her side. Two more agents to her left nodded and turned to the to the expansive window that took up the side of the room behind them. Bill's eyes rose to look at the glass, at the red window with soft dots of light fading into and out of view. Halfway between the floor and the ceiling was a metal square with a circular latch on its face. One of the agents twisted the latch and pulled it free, drawing a long Plexiglas tube into the open. Inside its clear walls was a single red light darting around a sea of crimson.
"Bill," 009 said. "Do you mind if I call you Bill?"
He didn't answer. After a few seconds, 009 strode forward to stand in front of him, turning to watch her subordinates force Joel to the ground and carry the tube to him.
"So you know what happens to humans when an ixodida bites them, right?" she asked.
Bill shook his head. He watched helplessly as agents yanked Joel's shirt up to his shoulders and pressed one end of the tube against his bare chest. Joel's screams rose to an incoherent screech.
"Really? That's funny. Wouldn't they have told you during your briefing?" 009 snickered. "Oh wait. That's us. Because Team Rocket stole information from people higher than you. Weird what they think you should and shouldn't know, right? I mean, this is a pretty important point."
"What is?" Bill murmured.
She didn't respond this time. Not verbally. Physically, she stepped back and motioned with her free hand—as if she was a stage performer motioning to the next act—to Joel. She didn't need to. Bill's eyes were already fixed on his assistant as the agent holding the tube twisted the handle once more. Red liquid poured from the bottom of the tube, ran over Joel's skin, and pooled beneath his body while the blinking light drifted down the emptying cylinder. Eventually, it vanished, and Joel's screams died down to a panting whimper for the next few seconds.
And then, he screamed once more. Horribly.
Bill flinched before watching the agents shift to holding Joel's arms and legs to the ground. Lifting his chin, Bill eyed his assistant before stopping dead where he was. On Joel's chest, a glittering, red bead flashed with a steady pulse. It was half-buried in Joel's skin, but Bill could tell exactly what it was with just one glance. It was one of the ixodida specimens.
With a violent twist, Bill tried to wrench his arms away from the agents, but they held tighter with each move he made. Eventually, they twisted his arms enough to force him to stay still, gasping for breath in their grip as his eyes fell on Joel again.
That was when he noticed that the creature hadn't moved from its spot. It wasn't lacerating Joel. It wasn't cutting him open or burrowing into his body. All he could see were sinewy, vein-like lumps slithering beneath Joel's skin from where the ixodida sat. Joel shuddered and spasmed through each moment that the pokémon laced its net across his body.
At last, what 009 meant dawned on Bill.
"Blazes," he breathed. "It's a parasite!"
009 flashed him another grin. "Wow, they weren't kidding about how smart you are!" Then, her voice dropped its sickeningly sweet quality. "To humans, yes. It's a parasite. It's a nasty one too. I'd show you what it does by letting you watch Anderson, but I don't think you work that way, do you?"
One of the agents by Joel rose and took the cylinder back to the wall. The clammy feeling of dread that sat in Bill's stomach grew just a little more as he watched her replace the device and turn the latch once.
"What-what are you talking about?" he asked.
"Oh, you know," 009 responded in a sing-song voice. "You wear costumes to understand pokémon, don't you?"
The agent at the wall turned the latch twice. Bill shifted his feet backwards but knew he couldn't break free to run.
"Everyone knows about that technique. The Symposium can't stop talking about it. They think it's funny." 009 tapped the tulip to her chin. "But me? I don't know. I think it's a really neat idea!"
Slowly, the agent at the wall drew the cylinder free from its holder. Another flashing light floated inside, but this one, Bill swore, looked more aggressive. More eager to escape. It darted to the bottom of the cylinder, almost as if it was waiting.
"See, the problem is we can't guarantee that you won't talk," 009 explained in mock sadness. "You're really close to Professor Oak, and you're the kind of person with a strong moral fiber. Or so they say, anyway."
The hands holding him forced him to the ground, and the remaining agents swarmed him to pin his limbs down. He thrashed once beneath their grip, but they held him steady while 009 stepped over him. She sat on his stomach, toying with the tulip until her fingertips held its stem like a pen. For the first time, Bill noticed that the end was sharpened and metallic like a scalpel. It felt like a scalpel too when 009 slashed it down his shirt to cut off every button with the deftness of a surgeon. Although he tried to remain as calm as possible, he couldn't help but take a shaky breath as he watched her part the ruined fabric to reveal pale skin beneath it. Seductively, she ran her fingers along a shallow cut on his chest that the tulip's stem left behind.
"Shame we have to do this to you," 009 said as she reached up for the tube. "You would've been a useful asset to Team Rocket. But who knows? There's always the chance you'll survive with your sanity intact. You just won't be as cute, but that's okay. I prefer my men to be older and more assertive anyway."
She pressed the end of the tube against his chest. His breaths came in short, panicked gasps now, and he struggled to maintain enough composure to lift his head and speak.
"Wait!"
The girl stopped and gave him a bored glare.
"What … what about the orders?" Bill stammered. "Your orders not to touch me."
"Oh, those?" She shrugged. "Guess we'll have to make this look like an accident."
"No! Wait!"
Ignoring him, 009 twisted the handle on the tube. Bill shivered at the sting of the ice-cold fluid gushing out around its opening. He stiffened, bracing himself as if he could will his skin into becoming a steel barrier to block the parasite. But his nerves prickled as he felt the itch of the creature's tiny legs crawling across his flesh. Finally, it stopped right over his heart.
"No," he whispered. "No. No, please! Please don't! Please don't—"
And then all he felt was hot, blinding pain.
It was as if someone took a thousand red-hot needles and stabbed him in the chest all at once. He was sure he screamed because he felt his throat strain and scratch as if his muscles were tearing. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything. Nothing in his brain registered except pure pain.
But at the last second, just before he could slip into unconsciousness, the pain crept back to a throbbing ache over his heart. He relaxed, falling back to the floor. The hands pulled away from him and left him to breathe shallowly where he lay on the floor. His world swam with the blurry images of Team Rocket agents bustling around him. He was dimly aware of 009 turning back to him, and he could see her mouth moving while her voice resonated in his head, as if it wasn't from her at all but instead from a million miles away from them.
"Don't worry. The rest won't hurt. We think, anyway."
The fingers of one of her hands ran along the vein-like net radiating from his parasite while her other hand brushed the petals of another tulip against Bill's nose. She squeezed the stem, and a blue powder flooded Bill's vision.
At last, he drifted into a deep, painless sleep.