Chapter Twenty-Eight

As Thoth navigated through a labyrinth of firewalls, with anti-malware programs patrolling the circuits like minotaurs, one of the guards, the one without any pants on, lurched to his feet. He walked up to the Porygon with a drunken, awkward shamble and looked over the Porygon's blocky body at the collection of screens, each displaying a different camera and audio recording.

"Hey, do you think you could set off the fire alarms?" the guard said with a lop-sided grin. "I want to see how they react."

"That would be most unwise," the Porygon answered. "Plus, the alarms aren't integrated into their security network. I'd have to approach each one and hack them directly." The Porygon turned and glared at the guard. "Would you get out of there? The master instructed us not to kill any humans, and that will kill him."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Set said. "When they start to die, it gets really hard to stay inside. It's like…" Suddenly, the guard's hands shot up to his mouth. He gagged, and a black bulge worked halfway up to his throat before he forced it back down. "Like that," the guard continued. "Like eating a neon tube while it's on."

Thoth stared at him. "Please tell me you weren't stupid enough to actually try it. I calculate a ninety-four percent chance that you did, but I'd like to give you the benefit of that six percent doubt."

The guard shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the…" He covered his mouth again, but this time, the black bulge reached his mouth. He bent over and vomited, and black fog billowed out of his mouth. A grin split the gas, followed by two eyelids opening, and then hands reached out and flexed their skeletal, slender fingers.

"Whoops," Set said, "Time's up."

"Another four seconds, and he would've been dead."

Set grinned. "You worry too much. So, are we done yet? I'm getting bored."

"Well, all the prisoners are out of their cells, but now we have to get them out of the prison."

"Can't we flush them down a toilet?" Set asked. "That's how I got out of a prison once."

Thoth turned back to the screens and said, "I'm not even going to ask."

Then the phone ring on one of the consoles. For the first ring, Set and Thoth stared at it. Then Thoth darted towards it, dropping everything else.

"Shit," the Porygon said, "It's a video call. I can't fabricate a full visual conversation like this."

Set's eyes darted around the room and stopped at the two guards crumpled on the floor. He swooped over to the guard with his pants on, shoved himself down the man's throat, and stood. Humans were such fragile and precarious shells. It felt like trying to balance two giant stacks of porcelain dinner plates on his tongue.

"I got it," Set said, lumbering over, arms outstretched to catch himself on the consoles.

"It's not going to work," Thoth said. "We have a two percent chance of success."

Set chuckled. "That's two more than zero." He sat down and stared at the impending call. "Tell me what to say, got it?"

Thoth sighed. "I invoke the destiny bond," he said. "Do not fuck this up, got it?"

Set's body, not the fleshy one but the nebulous gas buried in the man's chest, went cold as a buried corpse.

"Got it," he answered woodenly.

With that, the conversation started. Porygon whispered a greeting, and Set repeated it back at the corporal.

"What can I do for you, Corporal Mathers, sir?"

"Have you noticed anything unusual in the server room?" the stocky, bearded man asked. "There's some strange activity on the servers."

"No sir, nothing that I can see."

"Well go check!" he barked. "And put Todd on the phone, I need to have a word with him."

Set glanced nervously at Thoth, and then quickly said, "Yes sir. I'll go get him."

The Haunter moved the officer's body to the corner and forced himself up the officer's throat.

"That's Todd," Thoth said, gesturing towards the pants-less officer.

Set went in. The body felt colder than last time, and he already had that fluttering feeling in his gut. With a sinking feeling of dread, he realized that this body hadn't recovered from his last time piloting it.

He didn't bother going for the pants. His control over human hands was too clumsy, and he had no time. Clothed only in underwear below the waist, Set sat the human in the chair and faced the camera with the stillest face he could manage. The Haunter felt some dismay at seeing a faint grin on Todd's face in the upper right corner of the chat, which showed his side in miniature.

The corporal frowned as Set adjusted the seat. "What the hell happened to your pants?"

Thoth thought of an answer, and Set stumbled through the reply. "The – the belt buckle broke, sir." He swallowed, feeling an acrid taste at the back of his mouth, both for human and Pokémon. "My pants wouldn't stay up, so I left them."

The corporal stroked his beard. "Well, at least you didn't leave your station. I suppose what you did was acceptable." Then the man's expression hardened. "However, I cannot excuse your continued absence. Come to my office after your shift so we can have a more thorough discussion on the subject."

"Yes – yes sir." Set forced himself to keep his hands at his sides. Wisps of vapor crept up the man's throat, but he had just barely enough control to keep them down. "I'll go straight there."

"And for god's sake," the corporal added, "Get a new belt first. Got it?"

"Ye–" That last word was one too many. In a rush, Set was forced up the Todd's throat and out his mouth. The man slumped off the side of the chair, leaving Set alone, facing the corporal in a live video chat.

"Fuck," Set said, and hit the end call button.

Thoth darted over to the computers, whirring and buzzing like an overheating toaster oven. Set, meanwhile, stared at his hands, which trembled like guttering candles.

"How long do I have left?" Set whispered. Thoth ignored him, and he repeated his question, again and again, louder each time until his voice rose to a yell the Porygon couldn't ignore.

"Be quiet please," Thoth said, voice cracking with the sound of static. "I'm trying to do a lot at once. They're opening the floodgate and sealing the doors to the lower levels."

Set laughed, but he felt no joy in it. "You can't even give me a number? Just tell me how long I have left."

For another minute, Thoth grappled with the computer network, sliding through firewalls and tampering with software, but then the Porygon turned away.

"I'm too slow," it said with a dull, leaden voice. "The water's already starting."

"Well, tell them how to get out," Set replied.

"There's only one door, and it's four inches of steel. It would take Ra four hundred and sixty two hours of continuous application of heat with only fifty percent waste to melt a hole large enough for them to crawl through, and have two at best."

"Then flush them down the toilets."

Thoth gawked at him. "You do realize where those go, right?" The Porygon shuddered, its sleek polygonal angles rippling with static.

"I know. It's really fun," Set said. "I got myself locked in the same prison just so I could do it again. Well, that time, they caught on, so it was rather… uncomfortable… when am I going to die?"

"We don't have time for that. Water's already running down the ramp. If we don't seal off the vents, they'll all drown."

"You mean you don't have time." Set shrugged and grinned anxiously. "The way I see it, I'm dead anyways, so who cares?"

"Will you be quiet please? I'm using up all my processing power to calculate potential routes of escape."

"Just tell me how long I have left, and I'll stop bothering you. Hell, I think I even have an idea."

"You do? Tell me!"

"Nuh-uh!" Set said, waggling a finger in Thoth's face. "How long do I have left? Is there a way that I can not die?"

Thoth frowned and said, "I lied."

Set blinked. "What?"

"I lied. I tricked you into thinking you would die so you wouldn't screw anything up like you did with the keycard. It raised the probability of this mission's success, which had dwindled into single digits thanks to you." Thoth paused, and its eyes went out of focus as it ran a complicated string of calculations. Then it said, "I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me."

Set's mouth curled upward, and a tremendous laugh boomed out of his chest, echoing off the metal walls like deranged ravings within a mental asylum.

"Holy shit, that has got to be the best prank I have ever seen! You used my own destiny bond to make me do whatever you wanted!"

Thoth frowned at him. "This isn't the reaction I calculated. I thought you would be mad."

"Mad? That was genius!" Set slapped a hand on Thoth's back and cackled. "I thought I was good, but that was absolutely cold-blooded! I had shivers going down my spine the entire time!"

Thoth inched away warily from Set. "You don't make any sense." Then it shook its head. "Never mind that, what is your idea?"

Set laughed for a few moments, struggling to get his breathing under control. Then he said, "That second time, the toilet slammed shut behind me, hard. No air could get in, so the water stopped moving. I got stuck in the toilet-s u-bend." Set grinned sheepishly and said, "I can't swim, and those pipes tingled like these walls. I was down there a whole week until someone had to use that toilet."

Thoth shuddered again, but then it processed Set's suggestion. After running a string of computations and compiling the results, it pulled a thin silver disc out of its chest and pushed it towards Set.

"Get that to our master," Thoth said. "But that's only going to slow the water down."

Set smiled again. "Then you will have time to open those doors, right?"

Thoth shook its head. "Not even close. I think they got a few Porygon, and they're keeping me far away from that door."

"Then flush them."

"Don't be an idiot, humans can't fit down a toilet, and they can't stay submerged longer than a few minutes. Heck, there's only one pipe in the whole facility big enough to fit them…"

Thoth's eyes widened, and it darted back to the computers.

"You thought of something?" Set asked.

"Get that disc to him, now!" Thoth shouted.

"And then?"

If Thoth had a mouth, it would've grinned hard enough to split its face in two. Instead, it spun its arms and legs in dizzying circles. "Then we flush them down the world's biggest toilet."

Changelog

10/27/18 - minor edits