Author's Note:
Wow. How about I be hella rude and not reply to reviews? That's totally a good idea, amirite?
No, but for reals, sorry about that, folks. That was 100% my fault last time around, so I just want to take the time to give a few shout-outs.
First off, shout out to Gorgonfish and Neophilic for being two followers who've been around for awhile. You both are fantastic and pretty much the reason why I'm still chugging along with this story. Or folks who've followed this fic for the past five or six years in general are the reason, anyway. But you two especially are cool for dropping by. :D And yes, I did quite enjoy writing 009's part in the last chapter. 8D
Second, shout out to Doreh, who's a new reviewer, far as I can tell. I love seeing new faces around the reviewing crowd, so here's to hoping you drop by again! 8D
Third, big shout out to eldestOyster, not only for the swanky username but also for the lengthy crit. I have to admit a lot of what you said is 100% true, and I know this because hilariously enough, people have pointed those weak bits (the repetition especially) to me before. Bad habits die hard, I suppose, so I'm always, always cool with people pointing out awkward bits! In any case, I feel like a lot of the issues here might be chalked up to me failing to edit properly, especially if you say that the issues you're spotting now have gotten ironed out in later chapters ... unless I'm reading your review incorrectly. So! For right now, I'm definitely going to be a bit more thorough with editing future chapters, and I'd like to apologize for the quality of the first three. That and I'd like to make a promise to revisit those first three chapters and hopefully straighten out what you've pointed out, but in the meantime, by all means, let me know how my driving is!
And fourth, shout out to all of you who have favorited and followed this fic already. Your favorites/follows are just as important to me as reviews. I mean, I'm just thrilled that folks like this enough to want to be notified when the next update is, so rock on, guys. Rock on.
That all said, thanks to everyone so far, and without further ado, chapter three!
Three
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: 23/09/01, 13:21
[PANDORA LIES ON A COT IN ONE OF V.R.I.'S STANDARD OBSERVATION ROOM. PRESENT STATUS OF SPECIMEN IS IDENTIFIED AS BEING "STAGE VI." SUBJECT NO LONGER IDENTIFIABLE AS HUMAN.]
IVY
Hello, [REDACTED]. How are you feeling today?
PANDORA
Cold.
IVY
I see. [LOOKS AT HER CLIPBOARD] Pandora, I'd like to ask you the standard questions. Are you feeling well enough to answer them?
PANDORA
Yes.
IVY
Very good. First question. Are you in pain?
PANDORA
No.
IVY
Good. Good. Now, you mentioned in one of our last sessions that the parasite spoke to you. Did it speak to you again?
[SILENCE.]
IVY
[REDACTED]?
PANDORA
[INAUDIBLE]
IVY
What was that?
PANDORA
Come closer.
[IVY HESITATES BUT THEN LEANS TOWARDS PANDORA.]
PANDORA
[UNIDENTIFIED LANGUAGE]
[PANDORA OPENS HER MOUTH AND EXHALES A GUST OF WIND. IVY SCREAMS AND TURNS TOWARDS THE CAMERA. AT THIS POINT, D.E.V.A. MEDICAL EXAMINERS IN CHARGE OF REVIEWING THIS CLIP HAVE NOTED THE SIGNS OF SEVERE FROSTBITE DEVELOPING ON IVY'S FACE AND HANDS. AFTERWARDS, IVY FALLS TO THE FLOOR AND REMAINS MOTIONLESS. THREE ASSISTANTS RUN INTO THE SHOT AND ATTEMPT TO RESTRAIN AND SEDATE PANDORA. THE SUBJECT'S BODY EMITS A FLASH OF LIGHT, WHICH OBSCURES THE CAMERA FOR THE NEXT SIXTEEN (16) SECONDS.
AT MARK 4:32, THE LIGHT FADES, AND PANDORA APPEARS STANDING CLOSE TO THE CAMERA. ONE OF THE ASSISTANTS CAN BE SEEN OVER HER SHOULDER. HE IS FROZEN IN WHAT SECURITY HAS REPORTED TO BE A FULL-BODY BLOCK OF ICE.]
PANDORA
Hello.
[PANDORA EMITS A SECOND FLASH OF LIGHT. AUDIO AND VISUAL ARE LOST AT THIS POINT.
END FILE 06.]
—
Professor Samuel Oak was not having a good day.
Or, rather, he had not been having a good week in general. Not since the researcher he had vouched for and one of Polaris's most dedicated assistants were found in Laboratory F with ixodida parasites attached to them. Now, after days of paperwork and phone calls to the organization overseeing the project, he sat watching the six videos his superiors had sent to him in response.
At the very least, he had fewer questions as to what happened to Professor Ivy or the research institute that had vanished off the network less than a month ago. Unfortunately, each question that was answered was replaced by four more, and the email that had contained the files offered no other information from the mysterious panel in charge of Project Stardust. They had nothing to say other than the statement that, as the recently appointed director of Polaris Institute, he was responsible for anything that occurred within its complex. And with that, they strongly advised him to prepare.
Heaving a sigh, he leaned back and folded his hands over his stomach. Prepare for what? There was no other file after the sixth one, and the sixth video gave him no clues as to what Pandora had done or what the parasite was capable of.
Besides, he just couldn't imagine either of the Polaris victims behaving the way Pandora had. Reports about Joel described him as well-meaning, soft-hearted, and eager to learn. Joel was the kind of person who had witnessed an ixodida disemboweling lab rattata multiple times but had to be sent to the medical wing every time for fainting. Some researchers even described him as "only remotely dangerous in that he's clumsy."
And Bill? Oak knew Bill. He was Bill's mentor, his friend, and someone who had practically watched him grow up. Oak knew what Bill was capable of, and what he saw in the video files was most definitely not in that category.
But more than that, there was something else nagging at Oak's train of thought. Something missing in the story that he was given by the personnel who had found Bill and Joel in Laboratory F.
Before he could dwell on it any further, there was a knock on his door.
"Come in!" he called.
In response to his invitation, Professor Nettle opened the door and strode inside. Her thin hands clutched a tablet computer, and she fixed her gaze straight ahead on Professor Oak as she strode across his sparsely furnished office. The older researcher smiled and turned in his seat to face her. He motioned towards a chair in front of his desk, but Nettle glanced at it indifferently and stood behind it. This act of rejection hardly fazed Oak as he launched into a greeting.
"Ah! Professor Nettle! How are you?"
She lifted her chin slightly and answered, "Not well. I've come to give my report."
"Of course! Why don't you take a seat?"
"No, thank you." Her eyes moved to her tablet, and her thin fingers brushed its glassy surface. "Professor, there have been no signs of sapience from either Codename Adam or Codename Abel. Violent tendencies persist, especially in Abel. Crews have successfully confined both specimens to medical pods, but we lost three assistants and Professor Fig to electrocution from Abel's abilities in the process."
Oak's face darkened. Abel. The assistant. The well-meaning, soft-hearted assistant who fainted at the sight of a rattata being mutilated. And that was the person who had just electrocuted four people to death. Professor Oak clenched his fists on his desk.
"I see," he said.
"Adam, meanwhile, was easier to contain due to its primarily physical abilities, but it was just as dangerous," Nettle continued. "Assistants handling Adam were subsequently rushed to the medical wing to receive treatment for lacerations, impalements, and in one case, a severed hand. All six crew members will be released in a few days."
He winced. Adam. His student. Oak's mind continued to struggle with the thought of it, but he just couldn't see either of them, either of the victims, as monsters. Yet there were four deaths and a number of injuries just from those two.
But ... he knew Bill since he was a child, and he trusted the reports about Joel. It just didn't make sense.
"He," Oak said, his voice graver than usual. "Let's refer to both subjects as 'he,' not 'it.'"
"I apologize, professor."
Oak leaned back in his chair and spread a hand on the desk. "It's all right. Did you find anything else?"
"Two notes," she responded. "First, neither victim matches the description of Pandora. I have contacted the biology team, and they estimate that Adam and Abel are actually sixty percent through the process. We should see a complete transformation in three days."
"Ah."
"Second." Nettle folded her hands in front of her, holding the tablet to her waist. "Security and IT have finished running through the records. As you know, there was a breach in the system roughly twenty-six minutes prior to the discovery of Adam and Abel. We finally have enough evidence to establish a suspect."
"Hmm. Who?"
"Adam. The intruder accessed administrative-level operations without logging into the system, and the only information that was changed was the level of permissions given to Adam specifically. Not only that, but also, according to IT, he 'covered his tracks well,' if you will. I don't entirely understand the explanation, but from what I can understand, whoever hacked into the system encrypted the entire log for that shift in such a way that it took days for the team to unlock it, let alone decipher its packet of information." Nettle lowered her eyes, just enough to gaze hard at Oak. "It was clearly the work of someone who was an expert at this sort of thing. Say, someone who had developed something as complex as the pokémon storage system?"
Oak scratched his cheek as his expression broke into a sheepish look. "I should've warned you about that. Bill sometimes gets a bit too eager for his own good."
"Isn't that putting it delicately, sir?"
Normally, Oak would have offered a hearty laugh, but it didn't come this time. He was too tired, too pressed to do it. Instead, he grinned and kneaded a temple with three of his thick fingers.
"Yes. But enthusiasm can be a good quality in a good researcher."
Nettle huffed. "Perhaps. However, the fact of the matter is that we have enough reason to believe Adam broke into the system and caused a containment breach."
Oak's expression grew stern, and he relaxed the hand that was still on his desk. He wanted to disagree. He wanted to say something, but what could he say? There were pieces missing in this puzzle. Until he received word from Polaris's officers concerning the security footage in Laboratory F, he was blocked from asking Nettle direct questions about what he thought had happened. Instead, he had to settle for a deep breath and mental chess with all of his employees. And that meant agreeing with Professor Nettle, even if he knew without a doubt that this wasn't Bill's fault.
"Yes," he said. "Our computer experts are working on upgrading the security measures around Laboratory F. New locks, new transfer system, and everything in between."
"And will that be enough to prevent another incident?"
Oak grinned. "Well, it'll be enough to prevent curiosity from killing the meowth."
Nettle arched an eyebrow. "With all due respect, is this the right time to be making light of the situation?"
"You know what they say!" Oak said. "Laughter is the best potion!"
Nettle lowered her head and sighed again. Then, she stood.
"Yes. Well. I will take that into consideration, sir," she said. "Permission to be dismissed?"
"Yes, of course," Oak replied. "But keep your head up. Bill and Mr. Anderson are still alive, so there's hope for them yet."
Nettle nodded and turned to leave. As she did, Oak laced his fingers together and propped his elbows on his desk in thought. When Nettle was halfway to the door, Oak cleared his throat.
"Professor Nettle, don't you think it's strange?"
She stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Strange?"
Oak nodded. "Yes. It's very strange. From what security's told me, the locks have different logs, and Bill's ID never showed up on any of them. They say someone else's keycard was used for Laboratory F at the time you're describing. What do you make of that?"
Nettle shook her head and closed the distance between herself and the door. "That Adam knows how to mask his ID, sir."
She opened the door and slipped out without another word. Once the door clicked shut behind her, Oak frowned.
"Funny. It tells me he's not the one who broke into Laboratory F."
—
Professor Yvonne Nettle was not having a good day.
It took all of her reserve not to slam Professor Oak's door behind her as she stalked out of the office and into the hallway. When she was a good distance from the door, however, her lips pursed and her gait quickened. Her feet stomped hard into the floor, as if her heels could jackhammer the rage out of her body into and into the ground. She was certainly not in the mood to deal with anyone at that point, especially not the young woman who appeared seemingly out of nowhere and fell into step beside her.
"Our benefactor is livid," Nettle hissed.
"Our benefactor is livid?" the blonde snorted. "Looks to me like the only one who's livid is—"
"Before you let that famous mouth of yours run," Nettle snapped, "I would like to say that your actions have compromised our entire operation. Professor Oak knows that something is amiss, and frankly, a child can easily see why. You barely even tried to cover yourself with that flimsy accident story of yours. Why didn't any of you hack the locks' logs or use McKenzie's keycard on the door the second you decided to pin this whole mess on him? And why on Earth did you choose their chests as infection sites? Anyone would have been able to figure out that Anderson and McKenzie could never have accessed Laboratory F on their own and released parasites that would just happen to bite them in the exact same areas. You might as well have hung a sign over them that said they weren't alone when the breach happened!"
"We made do with what we could," 009 replied as she crossed her arms. "It's not like we had all the time in the world to fix what those stupid field agents did."
Nettle stopped and whirled around. Her companion jolted to a halt right beside her.
"That would be another thing," Nettle continued, her voice low and rumbling. "Our benefactor is far from happy that you had chosen to infect McKenzie. Do you have any idea how much danger you have put our entire organization in with that brilliant oversight of yours? We had direct orders not to touch him. Direct orders from people who can dismantle our organization in fantastically creative ways but had the mercy of leaving us alone so long as we agreed that we would never touch McKenzie."
"It was either that or eliminate him!" 009 answered. "He knew too much! I was as clear as I could be in my instructions. If those three idiots hadn't grabbed him when they snatched Anderson, then—"
"Agent 009, might I remind you that you volunteered to be the captain of Operation North Star?" Nettle growled. "As captain, you hold responsibility over your team's actions, including their errors."
She cringed. "W-wait. You're the project director, aren't you? Doesn't that mean that you're just as responsible as I am?"
"I fully realize that. That is why I find your incompetence completely unacceptable. Our benefactor agrees."
009 took a half step backwards to brace herself for the oncoming blow. Her hands balled into fists, and she gritted her teeth as she glared at her superior.
Noticing the changes in 009's stance, Nettle peered over the top of her glasses. "But. Our benefactor is also generous. He wishes to give you one more chance, on the condition that I monitor your every move to ensure that you don't fail us again."
At that, 009 relaxed. She straightened, her hands smoothing her scrubs as she took a step forward.
"Trust me. I won't."
Nettle narrowed her eyes. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic card. Tossing it at 009, she waited until the girl deftly snatched it out of the air before speaking.
"Good," she said. "Your instructions are simple. That is an upgraded pass to Laboratory Q. Go there and oversee the programming of the tracking collars that will be fitted on Anderson and McKenzie. We have a few programmers who will ensure that Polaris won't be the only ones receiving information from them."
009 nodded. Then, after a pause, she blinked. "And?"
"That's all."
With that, 009 furrowed her eyebrows. "What? That's all? You just want me to sit around and watch some hackers make dog collars? Please tell me you'll at least have me put them on our targets."
"Our benefactor doesn't even trust you to do that," Nettle replied. "I will personally handle the fitting. All you need to do is ensure that the programmers have fully tested the data transfer system before that happens."
The agent clenched her teeth and crossed her arms again. "Fine. And the relocation? Will I at least get a part in that?"
"Perhaps."
Nettle turned and began walking down the hallway. After she took a few steps, she glanced back over her shoulder for one last note.
"Now get to work."
—
Bill was most certainly not having a good day. For one, he was pretty sure he had just died.
The entire ordeal hadn't been going his way from the moment he was kidnapped, but it had taken a turn for the absolute worst when he slipped out of consciousness on the floor of Laboratory F. From then onward, he faded in and out of blackness, and the moments that weren't black felt strange to him, as if he was watching his body from the outside. He watched as he ripped off his own skin and found blood-slicked silver plates underneath. His fingers fell off, and in their places were sharp, silver claws. Every so often, his body convulsed and spat out teeth or shed hair in sickly green clumps. At one point, he saw himself thrashing in the hands of assistants, and although he couldn't see through the crowds of people, he watched the color red splashing across his line of sight. And the screaming. He could remember the screams and how they grew painfully louder with each second. Then there would be silence, followed by flashing glimpses of a white ceiling or a face he recognized. Sometimes, that face was Professor Oak, looking down at him in concern. Other times, there would be Professor Nettle, usually flanked by an assistant or two. In one moment, he could remember her face and two others, but he couldn't move, couldn't speak to them. Instead, all he could do was let them lift him as they fixed something around his neck.
But then, after awhile, he began to see himself from the inside. He remembered darkness, but he could feel parts of himself shift. The vertebrae of his spine stretched apart at one point. His stomach twisted in knots at others. Bones snapped and melted together in new configurations. Glands sprouted like tumors on his brain stem.
The strange thing was he couldn't feel pain. It was exactly like the blonde had told him: the process wasn't painful to him. It wasn't him screaming when he saw himself from the outside, and it wasn't him convulsing when his bones melted and his stomach twisted. It was something else. He was stuck in the darkness, stuck behind his eyes and left to watch.
And then he died.
Death wasn't what he expected it to be. Granted, he didn't think about death that much beyond how to avoid it, but he didn't realize that he would feel—actually feel—his body shut down. His heart shuddered to a stop. His throat choked on air. An electric pulse ran through his nerves, and he felt as if all of the muscles of his body throbbed all at once.
Then there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until he opened his eyes. After that, there was the blue moon.
Bill lay on the ground for a long while. His fingers curled around soft, cold dirt and waxy-leaved grass until a realization hit him: he could move. Jolting into a sitting position, he looked up, into the black canopy of a forest. Beyond the dark, broad leaves of the trees above him was the moon: a huge, swirling mass of azure set against a red sky. Bill squinted at it as he shakily rose to his feet. It was, for lack of a better term in his mind, absolutely beautiful. A soft aura ebbed from its edges, and swirling storms pooled across its smooth surface. It looked like a star, like Jupiter cut and polished from aquamarine.
He would have stood there for years, staring up at the blue moon, but instead he heard music. At first, it was soft and quiet, nearly indistinguishable from the wind of the forest, but the more he strained to hear it, the more it resolved into something coherent. He tilted his head in its direction and listened carefully to the tinny notes of a music box. The melody was familiar to him, like something his mother used to sing, but he couldn't quite put a name to the tune.
In Bill's opinion, the fantastic thing about being dead was that ideas which might have sounded stupid otherwise could sound perfectly reasonable in the afterlife. Not that Bill's sense of when an idea was and wasn't dangerous was all that reliable in the first place. After all, he had thought that a hallway in a security-heavy facility wasn't dangerous, but less than two minutes later, he had walked right into Team Rocket's grip. It was all situational, but had he been alive, he would have insisted that following the sound of a music box through an alien forest would lead him directly into a trap. Yet there he was, walking through flat-leaved weeds and waxy grass towards the source of the song.
Still, he couldn't help but think of the same phrase over and over again. The same cliché his teachers used to tell him to get him to stay still as a child. Curiosity killed the meowth.
"That's morbidly true," he murmured to himself.
He paused and rested his hand on a tree, his fingertips brushing against bark. But it didn't feel right. It felt smooth and warm, like steel heated under his palm. Glancing at it, he could see it looked like any other trunk with rough, brown-green bark. He pushed off of it, turning away from the music as he scuttled backwards in confusion.
"What is this?" He stared at his hands—his still human, still fleshy hands. "Wait. Maybe perception distorts when you don't have a physical body. Oh gods, I'm dead!"
He clasped his hands over his eyes and stumbled. For the first time since he entered the forest, the full weight of that single revelation crashed down on him. He was dead. He would never see his family again. He would never write another paper. And if this was Hell, he would never even see another pokémon. Everything was gone.
His feet continued to shuffle backwards until his back hit something smooth and warm. It yielded easily under his weight, and before he could catch himself, he fell through it and tumbled into something soft and spongy. Instinctively, he winced and then slowly opened his eyes once more.
Above him, he saw the canopy of a large tent. Vivid purple and red cloth hung overhead to form walls and a ceiling, and he had apparently fallen through a crimson panel serving as a door. Tiny silver stars ran up each piece of cloth and led to golden ropes that hung from the tent's ceiling. Some of the ropes ended in the brightly colored paper lamps that lit the room, but others ended in brass incense burners from which violet smoke puffed. Bill rubbed his eyes and sat up. What broke his fall, as he found out, was a pile of cushions: purple and red cushions trimmed with twisting, gold rope.
In fact, the cushions formed an uneven floor across a massive space, and lining this space, set in the other walls of the tent, were wooden doors of every color. Uncertain of his footing, Bill stayed near the entrance of the tent, but he cast his eyes around the room towards each door. Some of them were decorated with simple drawings of pokémon. Others were labeled with actual words, occasionally in languages he couldn't recognize.
"Where do those go?" he muttered. "Different afterlives?"
"No. Simply different parts of your mind."
Bill whirled around to face the center of the room. In the seconds his eyes were fixed on the walls, a set of stairs grew out of the floor. The stairs were made of chests of drawers, some of which were open to reveal books, papers, fountain pens, and other small items Bill couldn't readily identify from a distance. But from the topmost drawer, a hookah with a green bulb sprouted, and just above that was the platform: a dais covered with deep purple cushions. Reclining on top of these cushions, with the hookah's mouthpiece jutting from what Bill presumed was its mouth, was a willowy creature made of pure light. The light itself wasn't blinding, but no matter how hard Bill stared at it, the being's features refused to resolve. It was as if Bill was staring at a photograph of a person in which the person in question had been cut out. It was, in two words, a blank.
Yet there it was, speaking to Bill with his voice as it sucked on the hookah with a mouth that didn't exist.
"You are not dead, by the way. I stopped your heart temporarily to avoid further damage to itself. But do not worry. I am letting you borrow mine until the transition is complete."
Keeping his eyes on the thing, Bill reached down and began to dig a path through the pillows. Inch by inch, he crept closer to the figure. But he didn't say a word. While it was a relief to know that he wasn't dead, he had a feeling he knew exactly what this visitor was.
"Names bear fantastic power to your people," it continued. "To you, names hold an object's true meaning. It is not a sword until you call it a sword. I find it curious. Other species in this universe do not hold the individual in such high regard. We do not give names to each other. We find it redundant. It divides our unity and splits our identity. But you? No, I should be fair. Humans are not unique to that concept. There are others who consider names to hold great power, but I find you fascinating nonetheless."
About halfway to the platform, Bill stopped. He studied the visitor for a few moments before he finally found his voice again.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Who am I?" the figure repeated. It drew the hookah's mouthpiece from its face with one slender hand. "That is quite a question. Perhaps it would be best to begin with asking who are you? Your name. Shall we divine your purpose from it? It is an old name, and that is important to know. To your people, old names hold greater power than new ones. They come from your old tongues, the ones that prayed to ancient gods that are long dead now. And the people who spoke the language that birthed your name were warriors, believers in frozen giants and soldier gods and great world-rending beasts. But your name is not one that attacks. No, rather, it defends. William. Will, meaning willpower and determination. Helm, meaning helmet and protection. From this, you are William, whose purpose is to be the determined protector. Yet you are not William, are you? You corrupt the name and therefore corrupt and shorten its meaning."
The being bit the mouthpiece again. Although it had no eyes, Bill could feel its gaze bore into him as he pulled himself up onto the platform. He knelt there, beside the hookah's snake-like hose until the creature pulled the end from its unseen mouth. It exhaled a cloud of purple-green smoke that swirled around its companion's face. Burning, dense, incense-scented smoke filled Bill's throat, and he coughed and flinched away from the creature.
When he looked back, he paused. The creature now had a face, one that stared back at him with an expression he couldn't quite define. But he recognized its features right away. The dark eyes. The heart shape. The way its iridescent hair curled around its white skin. Bill would recognize those details anywhere. They belonged to his face.
"Therefore, I ask you," the creature continued. "Who are you?"