Chapter Forty-Four

Ensconced beneath an empty suburb on the city outskirts, buried deep in the land abandoned when the Rockets terrorized the public, Nine's main headquarters, carved out of sewer systems, old subway lines, and maintenance shafts, busied itself with the imminent attack on Team Rocket.

Nine oversaw it all, giving orders for the acquisition of weapons and recruits, drafting battle plans with his officers, and collecting funds and information from a network of supportive citizens moved by his speeches.

Nine's public office, at the heart of the Knights' facilities, was engineered to match every facet of his doctrine. The room was a perfect circle, without a single shadow cast by the parallel light pouring out of the ceiling. All furniture, from his desk to the pots, widened at the base, and chairs forewent the conventional four-legged design for a single fat stump. Even his desk had no room for legs beneath it, and the drawers could only be opened together, with the bottom one sliding across the floor. The floors and walls were white concrete, and every surface of the room, the plants included, matched in color. The constant uniformity made the room disconcertingly blank, and some Knights stumbled on furniture they couldn't see.

Nine studied the profile on new recruits that the white-masked man handed him. Seven folders were tucked inside a plastic binder, each labeled with a randomized string of numbers. Each document had names, gender, and age redacted, to such a degree that even the length of the original content could not be surmised. And yet, despite the white-washing of these profiles, that randomized number remained necessary for management of the Knights.

"It is unfortunate that we all have unique capabilities," Nine mused to the man standing before him. "It would be better for everyone if we were all the same, but it's an impossibility borne of an imperfect world. Failing that, one would hope that we could all at least share the same skills, but in evolving to fit into a society, different classes emerged to address early civilization's different needs. Thus, inequality in aptitude became a genetic disposition that has endured beyond the point they became a hindrance to cooperation."

The recruiter bowed his head. A bit of his bald scalp showed above his mask before he hastily pushed it back up. "We shall try our best to overcome these difficulties." He cleared his throat, and continued, "No progress can be made if we simply assume a thing is impossible and never attempt to challenge that assumption."

"Aptly put," Nine told him. He leafed through the profiles. "Did anyone stand out to you?"

"The third one has experience in a Pokémon Center," he said. "I believe you were interested in that, were you not?"

"Yes," Nine said. "In the coming days of strife, medical professionals will play an invaluable role in our fight against the Rockets. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

"Of course, sir." The man paused, and added, "The fifth one's a good fighter. Took out half of our men and got a pokemon out before they got her at knifepoint."

"Half? It's a team of six, correct?"

"Yeah. She – my apologies, I mean they were caught off guard, but they reacted quickly. None of the testers suffered permanent injury."

Nine found the appropriate folder and read through it. Nothing in her history seemed unusual, and her resume suggested any number of uses.

"Stressful situations can bring unexpected results out of people," he said.

"We'll train them carefully," the recruiter said. "In time, they may be a great asset in the field."

At the end of the file is the whited-out photograph. He kept them to fit with his doctrine of uniformity and sacrificing personal identity, but they left a distasteful bulge in the folders.

As he closed the folder, a glint of black caught his eye. Looking closer at the picture, Nine saw a glossy black hair embedded in the white-out.

"Do you have anything else to report?" Nine asked.

"No sir."

"Then you may leave."

Once the door locked itself behind the recruiter, Nine peeled the hair out of the white-out. Four inches of glossy black hair curled up on itself. The hair nagged at Nine as something out of place, too short and too long all at once, and uncomfortably familiar.

With a letter opener, Nine eased the crumbling ink off the photograph until the recruit's head of blonde hair was exposed. His skin tingled, and the blobby mess of his chin bubbled with excitement.

"No, hold on," Nine told himself. "It might be my own hair." But even as he said it, the thought that his hair happened to get buried suggested that the hair had to get stuck in while the white-out was wet eroded at that possibility.

Then he considered his security. Though she could maintain illusions indefinitely, Seven couldn't slip anything metal past his detectors, and the baggage went through a thorough inspection. He checked the file, and found a complete list of her belongings, down to the discarded clothing and their contents, along with the x-ray images. From an old, battered stick of lip balm to every card and photograph in her wallet, nothing appeared remotely suspicious.

Frowning, Nine put the files away and left his office. A few turns away, an elevator requiring keycard access sat at the end of a long hall. Two Knights stood at either side of it, with thick padding built into their robes and assault rifles at their sides.

Nine's mushy flesh writhed, and out of its depths, a card oozed out of his wrist and into his right hand. He nodded to the two guards, inserted the card in the reader, and took the elevator down. Only the softest of whirring sounds broke the silence as he traveled miles below the city's surface.

The elevator slid to a graceful stop, and the doors snapped open. White-cloaked figures rushed across the hallways, darting in and out of rooms with tablets and engineering equipment. Nine inspected the rooms as he passed, poking his head into rooms full of pokemon center healing machines, isolation chambers with bed-ridden Pokémon, and rooms crammed with biomedical assays.

As one of the Knights passed him, one with a silver pin on his shoulder to designate him as head of R&D, Nine snagged his shoulder. "Any progress?" he asked.

"Only steps backwards," they replied bitterly. "Two more died, and the others still won't wake up."

Nine nodded. "Do what you can for them. It's unfortunate, but sacrifice will be necessary to bring about the world we seek."

"Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"Yes. I need to speak with Bruno. Have the room cleared, and make sure there's no recording."

The Knight looked up from his tablet. Though the robes revealed nothing, Nine knew that the Infernape and Chatot beneath those robes gave him confused frowns.

"As you wish, sir. I'll notify security immediately."

The Knight sped away, and the uneven swish of their robes hinted at an inhuman stride. Nine went into a few of the rooms. Sweating, pained faces stared blankly at the ceiling. One writhed in their sleep, twisting and moaning, and the sheets were soaked with sweat.

Nine shuddered, asked after an increase in the sedatives, and went to the bunker at the end of the hall. Thick steel doors with another keycard terminal and two Knights blocked the way in. After showing his ID and inserting it into the reader, the doors crawled apart with loud clanking noises. Pneumatic pistons popped and hissed, and electric motors whined.

Four Knights greeted him on the other side. Each had an arsenal worth of weapons strapped to their robes.

"As requested, we are vacating the room," one of them said. "We will be waiting outside the door in case you need us."

Nine thanked them and asked, "Has he been fed recently?"

"Just gave him his lunch half an hour ago," another guard answered. They fidgeted on their feet and said, "I hate to ask this of you, but could I have a short break? I feel groggy, like I've got a bad cold or something."

"Take however much time you need," Nine said. "I would not want you getting sick because you worked too hard."

"Thank you sir," the Knight said with a bow. "I'll come back as soon as I'm better. Shouldn't take too long."

Before he could think to ask more, the Guard ran off and disappeared around a corner. The other three walked past him and stood with the two by the door. With a shrug, Nine walked in, and the doors closed soundlessly behind him.

The bunker had concrete walls, floor, and ceiling. In the center, a hazy blue plasma barrier encircled a furnished space with a table, two chairs, and a bed. An empty plate and a fork sat on the table next to the morning newspaper and a laptop.

Bruno, sitting at the table, looked up from the laptop and scowled at him. "Here for more samples?"

"No, I have questions."

He closed the laptop. "Fine, just get it over with."

Nine walked up to the translucent barrier. A part of him urged him further forward, into the light, into oblivion. Just another step, and even his monstrous body couldn't put him back together.

He held his ground an inch away from the barrier. "Was Seven planning to infiltrate the White Knights?"

Bruno's eyes widened, and he looked away. "I wouldn't know. They never told me anything."

Nine smiled. "I already found her."

Bruno stiffened, but he kept his face impassive. "Why would I care? She kept me in that hellhole." He glanced at him and asked, "Are you planning to kill her?"

"I don't," he said. "But the Rockets probably will."

"They won't," Bruno said with a shake of his head. "She's an Admin."

"They're using her," Nine said. "And when they're done with her, they'll throw her away like the tool they think she is. You know how the Rockets treat Pokémon. Why should they treat her any different?"

His words drove a wedge through Bruno's mask. A grimace twisted his mouth, and his hands clenched into fists. "I don't know anything," he said flatly.

Nine stroked the patchy fur on his arms as he considered his next words. "She and I, we were both put through hell," he said. "We were experimental weapons meant to assassinate the leaders within the Rockets' command structure. From an early stage, we endured genetic modification that plagued us with tumors. I nearly died and would have suffered more tests had I not contrived my escape." He grabbed a handful of his gelatinous face and crushed it in his fist. "This is what was done with me. Seven underwent even more medical treatments to become their perfect assassin, from vocal cord implants to adrenaline injections and muscle enhancements. They taught her how to slip past security and incapacitate key targets, all with the hope of using her." He laughed bitterly. "I suppose working with the Rockets seems like the best way to strike back against the system that had tortured her, but it'll only get her killed in the end."

Nine leaned far enough forward that he could feel the hairs on his muzzle frying in the plasma. Bruno hesitantly met his eyes, and he rubbed at one of his ears.

"I, on the other hand, am using what I endured to help all Pokémon." He gestured towards the door. "Want to know a secret? Every Knight you've ever seen is a Pokémon." He waited until Bruno's eyes widened. "Around half of the Knights are Pokémon in disguise, with Chatot to speak for them. More Pokémon every day become sentient, because I tweaked every healing machine in the world." Nine glanced around the room, as if to assure himself no one was listening. "The same experiment to make us smarter, I perfected and wrote into a software update for every Pokémon center. I also acquired a few machines and healed any Pokémon I can find."

Nine cleared his throat. He smiled at Bruno, who stared at him with rapt attention. "So, Bruno, please tell me everything you know about Seven so I can help her."

Bruno tripped over his own tongue in his haste to tell everything. It was less than he had hoped for, since Nine didn't share any details with him, but the little he knew lined up with an infiltration at this time.

When he got back to his office, Nine called HR and had Allison put under tight surveillance, and another call to security tightened access to all lab facilities, weapon repositories, and VIP rooms.

He took out the file and held the scratched photo in his hands. The beaming blonde-haired face of Allison Caldwell looked up at him behind a reflected sheen of light.

"Your move, sister."

Changelog

12/25/18 – minor edits