Chapter Twenty-Two
Bruno stifled a yawn as the Commissioner Mason booted up a power point presentation titled "Rockets Raid WK Warehouse." Peter, sitting next to him, slid a cup of coffee across the long, wooden table.
"Didn't sleep well last night?" he asked. "You look dead tired."
A combination of sneaking out, a cup of berry liquor, and spending a sleepless night staring towards the rumbling mass of aura at the edge of his senses made his eyelids droop. He gave a noncommittal shrug and drained the coffee in one go. He nearly gagged. It was strong enough to strip paint off a wall.
"Not my choice of coffee either," Peter said with a chuckle, "But it'll keep you awake, that's for sure."
Bruno strangled another yawn and held out the mug. Peter topped it off from a pitcher in the center of the room, and took a packet of sugar out of his pocket. Bruno tore the packet open and poured the contents onto his tongue. The sweet tingle cut through the bitter aftertaste.
The Commissioner cleared his throat. Gregory Mason was a stout, muscular man who had to duck under most doorframes. He had a ring of gray hair surrounding a shiny patch atop his head. Thick brown frames held his glasses in place, and a gray goatee, speckled with white, clung to his chin like a shrub. He wore an officer's blue uniform with silver trim at the shoulders, and bore a silver hawk on a steel chain around his neck that marked his office.
"Thank you all for coming here," Mason said to the thirty officers sitting in front of him. "As you may be aware, the Rockets attacked a White Knights stronghold."
Gregory Mason pressed a button on a remote, and the slideshow advanced. An image of a building, blown to pieces filled the screen. The two south corners of the building stayed upright, while the rest had fallen into a massive, smoking crater.
"Very little evidence remains due to the collateral damage, but what we found suggests that this was an important warehouse for the Knights, housing weapons, explosives, and Pokémon."
Bruno's jaw clenched as the presentation showed pokéballs, covered in ash and rubble, strewn at the crater's bottom.
"We also don't know how the Rockets got this intel. Even we didn't know about this site until after the attack started, and we weren't able to get anyone on the scene before it was over."
A blank slide, with a white background, flashed onto the screen. Mason looked back at it and pressed the button before continuing his speech.
"Now, I'd like to discuss the pros and cons of what happened last night before we decide anything else." As he said this, a black header saying "Pros and Cons" appeared at the top of the slide.
"First, the pros," the Commissioner said with the press of a button, bringing up a street, sparsely populated and absent of white masks. "Favor for the Knights plummeted after the attack, along with simultaneous assaults on forty-six civilians. This also secured the mayor's powerbase, for the time being…" the Commissioner trailed off, and his brow furrowed up. Those two points appeared in green text on the left, underneath Pros, but it seemed pitifully short compared to the size of the screen. Then, muttering under his breath, he went on.
"This also seems to have caused a lull. The Knights need to recuperate, and the Rockets are taking time to fortify themselves. That would ordinarily mean we'd have breathing space as well."
He let that 'ordinarily' hang in the air like a guillotine. A few officers cleared their throats and muttered to each other.
"Unfortunately, there've been hundreds of complaints already, and more coming in." A graph depicted the alarming upward trend of calls into the office. "They want arrests, and they want them yesterday. It'd take another Mad Hax to get them quiet at this point."
A few officers chuckled at that, but most grimaced at the graph pointing towards the ceiling, and at the red text that popped up under Cons. Then another point popped up as Mason unconsciously tightened his grip on the remote.
"Oops, sorry about that," he said with a weak chuckle. "And yeah, as you can see, we also know that, whatever the Knights had left there, the Rockets got their hands on. While it looks like there wasn't much left, we know the Rockets left with an extra truck."
Mason took a long swallow of coffee without a change of expression. With a napkin, he dabbed stray brown drops out of his goatee, then he bunched it up. With a graceful flick of his hands, he tossed it into a garbage can halfway across the room.
"As for our final problem, the White Knights have vanished. No more press conferences, no more tours of their public offices. They've tightened up their ranks, and none of our spies are getting the slightest glimpse of what they're up to. We're completely blind."
Red text reached down the whole screen. Commissioner Mason took a deep breath, drank more coffee, and pressed the button. The slideshow said "Plan of Attack."
"After careful consideration, we have decided to concentrate all our efforts on the Rockets. They have some new toys, and the taste of blood will have them thirsty for more. First, we're going to redouble our efforts to infiltrate their ranks."
Almost everyone shifted in their seats. A few officers groaned, but it was too muffled to pick them out.
"Yes, I know, nobody's happy to hear that, but we know too little. We need eyes and ears on the Rockets more than ever. It's dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as not knowing what they're up to."
The Commissioner looked back at the screen, which hadn't changed. He rapidly pressed the button, and after a few seconds, that first bullet point popped up under the heading. It was quickly followed by a second.
"Blast it," he muttered just loud enough for Bruno to hear. Then he tightened his face into a smile and said, "Yes, that's the other priority we have. With all those weapons, the Rockets are going to need men to use them, and we have a small army of theirs in Stonebough. Half of you are going to be reassigned to prison duty for the foreseeable future, while the other half will work on keeping peace in the streets and getting moles in Rocket HQ. I also got approval to beef up the security budget in Stonebough Prison. When we're done, a Rattata can't squirm through the pipes without passing by motion sensors and cameras."
He turned the presentation off, ran a hand over his goatee, and stared directly in the eyes of every officer there. Bruno held his steely brown-eyed gaze for two seconds before his eyes drifted towards Peter.
Once Mason finished his survey of the room, he asked, "Does anyone have any comments?"
Peter raised his hand, just high enough for the Commissioner to spot. "What were the Knights planning to do with weapons and explosives?"
Gregory Mason grimaced. "Use them on the Rockets. I hope." He shifted on his feet and asked, "Anyone else?"
For another twenty minutes, officers gave advice and asked questions. Bruno didn't pay any attention to it. He could feel the violet glow tugging at his gaze. For a while, he stubbornly kept his head forward and took regular sips of the bitter black dregs in his cup, but his head gradually turned away from Peter. He thought he could read emotions in the swirling mass of aura, and it seemed to tremble with… what? Excitement? Fear? There was also relief, but flickers of unease lurked in her mind, like glowing sparks dancing through a flame.
Peter gave him a firm nudge. With a start, Bruno's head whipped forward, and he glanced at Peter out of the corner of his eye. His lips were curled in a thoughtful frown, and he drummed his fingers on the table.
Once the officers were done talking, Mason gave them a salute and said, "Thank you for your time. You are dismissed!"
The officers rose as one and made for the door in a fluid double column. Bruno followed behind Peter and nearly bumped into another officer. With a murmured apology, Bruno hurried out of the room.
Peter drove them both to a nearby bakery, one with oran berry glaze on their donuts. He ordered one, just for Bruno, thought for a moment, and then got himself one as well.
After they sat down and got complimentary cups of coffee from a smiling waiter, Peter leaned forward, over his untouched donut, and said, "You seem… off today." He took a swallow of coffee. "No, not just today. It's been a few days now. All the sudden, you'll start staring off in one direction, completely lost in thought, and then you get startled the second I touch you." He put one hand gently on Bruno's shoulder and asked, "Could you tell me what's wrong?"
Beneath Peter's hand, Bruno's skin felt hot and sweaty. He fingered his donut, struggling to find words. He couldn't tell him about the meetings at the bar, they all agreed not to, and he wanted her to be a part of them… but she wasn't one of them yet. So, he took out his paper and wrote down everything about the scarlet-haired Pokémon and how her aura tugged at him.
Peter read it all with a blank expression on his face. Bruno swallowed nervously and took a sip of coffee to steady his hands. Then, after a long, silent minute, Peter folded up the paper and put it in his pocket.
"I think I get the gist of it," he said. "Part of me thinks we should go to Elder Bayron with this." His right eyebrow rose slightly with the implied question. Bruno settled back in his seat and slowly shook his head.
A bit of Peter's smile slipped, but otherwise, he gave no sign of emotion. "I see. Then I suppose the only other option is to find her ourselves on our next day off."
Bruno grinned, but Peter brought his excitement into check. "With the way things are right now, I doubt we'll get a break anytime soon." Bruno's smile vanished, but Peter doubled back, saying, "They should keep us on patrol duty. Maybe you'll run into her again."
That thought brought back enough of Bruno's appetite for him to eat his donut, but he didn't even taste the citrus glaze smeared across his muzzle.
Changelog
10/3/18 - minor edits