Chapter 16 – Probing

It wasn't long before they came for us. Specifically, they came for our eyewitness accounts of the incident that had taken place no more than two days ago. We were still in the medical bay, having just finished our morning cup of coffee with Adrienne, when they came.

Grand admiral Kingsley Desjardins was the first to enter the room, followed by an elderly woman in a suit. She had her hair done up in a bun, and had piercing green eyes that had a surprisingly feline appearance. The door closed behind them, and we thought that they were the only ones coming to record our testimonies – after all, we were probably the only people to have seen the possible perpetrator of that night's destruction.

That was, until the room's door opened again of its own accord, and a wobbuffet shuffled in. It was wearing a pair of goggles, of all things, and was frowning widely as was the norm for its species.

"Shall we begin?" Desjardins asked the lady, causing her to nod. "Your wobbuffet is ready?"

"He is," she replied, patting the blue psychic pokemon's arm as she turned to regard me. "Zachary knows me already, but you probably have no reason to. I am Rolanda Cripshay, and I hold the position of chief medical officer at Pastoria city.

"Today I shall be taking your testimonies with regards to the recent terrorist activities in Canalave. My wobbuffet shall be assisting me in recording whatever details you can recall. We'll start with Zachary – state your name and rank, please."

General Harding did so, and she followed up with questions about what we had seen that night. She didn't spend more than ten minutes questioning him before thanking him for his time, though. The whole while, her wobbuffet stood by his bedside, completely motionless save for the occasional twitching at the corners of its massive mouth.

"Alright, now – it's your turn, young man. State your name and rank."

I recited my name and rank, and she went through the same questions that she had asked General Harding. For some reason, I found answering them to be a rather tricky task, since my memory seemed to have become blurred all of a sudden. Nonetheless, I tried to focus on the task at hand, and managed to supply an answer to all of her queries.

It was only when I had finished answering her that I realized that the wobbuffet had quietly moved up to my bedside during the questioning. The pokemon hadn't made a sound, but somehow, I got the impression that it was up to something.

"Umm, ma'am?"

"Yes?"

"I honestly couldn't really recall some details clearly just now – was it due to the wobbuffet?"

She cocked her head to one side, and offered me a small smile. "Why, of course. He was going through your memories of the incident as you spoke, to see if you might have omitted anything. It's the standard questioning procedure for such situations, really."

I frowned. "But didn't he make my memories blurred by doing that?"

"He knows what we need to know," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Now if you'll excuse me, I do believe we're done here. Thank you for your time."

With that, she and her wobbuffet teleported away, leaving Desjardins behind. The grand admiral merely shrugged in response to that, and turned to face us. "This is all rather interesting, don't you think?"

"How so, sir?" General Harding asked politely.

"Well..." Desjardins dragged the word out as he pulled a chair for himself and took a seat. "It seems that the terrorist used some considerably powerful fire pokemon during the attack. None of your pokemon were pushovers, and so the terrorist's ability to very nearly defeat your team despite a type disadvantage is hardly something we can ignore.

"Which of course brings us to the next logical deduction – how did the terrorist get hold of such powerful pokemon? We supposedly have records of all pokemon that are of such strength, and yet here we are."

"Sir," General Harding said. "What if the pokemon were not registered? A large number of trainers did go into hiding when we started the registration."

Desjardins nodded. "True, but we are discussing a possible type-specialist here. There weren't too many of those even during training's heyday, now were there?"

"Not really, I think... but fire is hardly a rare type among trainers," General Harding said, sitting up and wincing slightly as he put weight on his broken arm in its plaster cast. "Were there similar reports from the other continents, sir?"

"Similar, but not involving fire types," the grand admiral replied, looking out of the medical bay's window. "Kanto and Johto had rock types using the fires as cover to demolish buildings, and Hoenn had several ghost types wreaking havoc as the coach crashed down. Unova had some poison-types attacking the location of the attack, if the reports are accurate."

"They are well coordinated, and they possess significantly powerful pokemon... you're thinking that they came from the underground?"

"Precisely – those battle rings are probably where we'd find the last of the unregistered trainers."

General Harding turned to face me with a frown. "With all due respect, sir, I think looking there might be a waste of time."

"Oh?" Desjardins replied, his expression one of curiosity. "And why is that so, general?"

"The two of us – me and the kid here – have been down to the Canalave Underground often enough. We haven't seen any fire-types of that power down there which matched those used during the terrorist attack here in Canalave. Maybe we've seen one or two on the odd occasion, but never the likes of magmortar and ninetales."

The grand admiral shook his head. "At present, we don't think that the fire types came from here – we suspect they were brought in from Lavaridge, Cinnabar, or maybe even Stark Mountain. What I want you to do is to head back down to the Underground, and check out the pokemon which are listed here – all were seen using Flamethrower, mind you."

With a flick of his wrist, a small sheet of paper slid out of his sleeve and into the palm of his hand. He passed it to General Harding, who took it with his free hand. Upon reading it, his eyes widened in shock, and he turned to look at me.

"Kid, you'd want to come closer to look at this."

I sat up, biting back a wince as my recovering ribs shifted a little, and leaned over my bedside to look at the list of pokemon names. Once I had read it, I understood just why General Harding had been shocked by it.

Nidoking. Skuntank. Weezing. Seviper. Muk.

All four were rather common poisonous pokemon, really. But it was notoriously difficult to train poison-types to use Flamethrower without them hurting themselves rather badly in the process, and so few trainers actually taught it to their poisonous team members.

There was, however, a trainer down at the Underground who ran a team of poison-types. And surprise, surprise – almost his entire team knew Flamethrower. In fact, if my memory served me correctly, only his drapion was incapable of using it.

"Didn't we-"

"We have," confirmed General Harding with a grim expression. "Sir, why wouldn't you order an arrest right now? It would be much better than waiting for us to recover, no?"

Desjardins frowned. "We already had a spy sent down there – she managed to pass us rumors that the suspect was indeed there, but she ended up going missing in action before obtaining any concrete evidence."

"Looks like we'll be heading back down to the Underground once we get better, eh?" General Harding gave me a weak smirk. "Time to meet up with an old acquaintance, it seems."

I could only nod mutely – if our guesses were correct, General Harding's old friend and occasional bookie, Colin, was in for quite a nasty bit of business once we recovered and tracked him down.

xxx

I was discharged from the medical bay on the third day after the incident, and General Harding, two days after that. His right hand remained in a cast, which seemed to keep a damper on his spirits, but otherwise, he was just as hyperactive as he normally was.

He also claimed that temporarily not being able to use his right hand for certain 'bodily functions' was a mere annoyance, but I decided not to ask for a detailed explanation on that.

And so, we headed down to the Underground. As was our normal routine, we teleported down there – I could probably count the number of times I had walked there on one hand. Our destination was none other than Dolph's residence, since the Underground's de facto chief was one of the few who tended not to shoot people that teleported to his home as soon as they arrived.

When we arrived, Dolph was pouring himself a glass of whisky – expensive whisky, by the looks of the label, too.

"Ah, Zachary," he greeted. "Two more glasses? Or are you here on business this time?"

"Business, I'm afraid," my boss replied, as Adrienne cast a wary glance around Dolph's empty living room. "Upstairs claims that they sent someone down here, that went missing. Know anything about that?"

Dolph sipped his whisky, looking thoughtful. "They sent a spy down here?"

"Apparently, they did."

"Oh, I expect I remember her now," the Underground don smirked. "She was that amateur who stood out like a pink quagsire."

General Harding sighed, "They sent a newbie down here? What were they thinking?"

"You're the military man, you tell me – she won't be reporting back anytime soon, I'm afraid."

"And just what happened to her?"

Dolph shrugged. "We caught her, knocked her out, and used some Dream Eaters to modify her memories. I think she's working in Corneo's whorehouse now."

"Kid, this is why you should never send an amateur to do a professional's job," General Harding turned to me. "So, Dolph – just what was she after?"

"Colin, apparently," the don shrugged. "We couldn't get anything beyond that out of her mind... she might have been horrible at espionage, but her anti-psychic training was quite effective at jamming deeper mental probing."

"So, Dolph...just where is Colin?"

"Why do you want Colin?" countered Dolph, regarding us with interest over his whisky glass.

"I'm sure you're aware of the terrorist attack on the surface," General Harding replied conversationally. "Probably felt the shockwaves, didn't you?"

"We know about it, but we didn't feel anything down here. The walls are all reinforced three times over, anyway."

"Well, there were attacks on the other continents, too. One of them involved poison-types using Flamethrower."

Dolph frowned. "I see where this is going, and I don't like it one bit."

General Harding merely shrugged. "Tell us where Colin is, then – if he is innocent, then there wouldn't be anything to fear."

Ice cubes clinked against the bottom of the glass as Dolph emptied it and placed it on the same table as his bottle of whisky. His facial expression was an unreadable mask as he turned back to face us, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Colin is here," he admitted after some time. "However, I can assure you that he is innocent in all this."

"How sure are you, Dolph?" General Harding asked. "His team fits the description which we were given, and I'm sure you know how hard it is to train a poison-type to use Flamethrower."

"On the night of the attacks," Dolph said, "we were all at the marketplace, watching that jury-rigged projection set we have there. We saw the radio towers being attacked, and the train coaches being hijacked. All broadcasted by the terrorists, as I'm sure you're aware.

"Colin was with me the whole time, so he couldn't possibly have been upstairs, let alone on another continent. Obviously, he wouldn't loan out his team – you know how much he treasures them."

"Nonetheless," General Harding insisted, "we shall need to see him. I'm sure that you understand?"

Dolph sighed, and nodded. "Indeed I do, Zachary – and it is only on the basis of our friendship that I am not killing you for not taking my word for it. I'll take you to him – his muk nearly ate that woman when she got close to him."

We followed Dolph into one of the back rooms of his home, which had several closed doors in it. He stepped up to one of them, and rapped on it thrice with his knuckles.

"Colin, you have visitors."

Some muffled sounds came through the door, and seconds later, it was opened from the inside. Colin stood in the doorway, wearing his usual vest and cargo pants. His spiky hair was even more dishevelled than it usually was, and that was saying something. Dark bags under his eyes were ample proof that he hadn't been getting sufficient sleep, but the eyes which they hung beneath were as bright as searchlights.

Colin might have been sleep-deprived, but he definitely wasn't letting his guard down, it seemed.

"Colin," General Harding nodded. "Good to see you here."

"The pleasure's mine," he said slowly in reply. "To what do I owe it?"

"We heard that you were being followed, and that your muk nearly had a snack. Care to elaborate?"

The poison specialist leaned against the doorframe, and shrugged wearily. "Stupid woman's getting stuffed now at the brothel, I think."

General Harding rolled his eyes. "Not that part, Colin. Do you know why she was after you?"

"Stupid cunt claims that I was responsible for the attack on Unova," Colin snapped. "No such thing, of course – I was watching Canalave get attacked, down at the marketplace."

"And what was your team doing then?"

"With me, obviously," said Colin. "They're too temperamental for anyone else to handle them."

As if on cue, there was a flurry of movement in the room, as his skuntank sidled up to its trainer. The partial dark-type gave us the evil eye as it wrapped its bushy tail around his legs, causing him to bend down and stroke the fur on its back.

"Really, Zachary – why would I throw my lot in with the terrorists?"

"You're an opportunist, Colin, and you always have been. Need I say more?"

"And what opportunity do you think presented itself, then?"

General Harding looked at him thoughtfully. "I honestly wouldn't know. But unless you can name someone else who has a near-identical team of poisonous pokemon that are proficient in using Flamethrower, your ass is hardly covered now, is it?"

Colin ran a hand through his hair, rendering it even messier than it had originally been. "That's the problem, Zachary – it's frankly too much of a coincidence. Get your slowbro to read my mind if you really doubt it."

"He's innocent, as far as I can tell," Adrienne said helpfully, drawing several curious looks. "What? I've been discreetly probing him since he opened the door."

"That just leaves us with an even greater mystery, then," General Harding sighed. "Would you happen to know of anyone else who taught their poison-types Flamethrower?"

Colin scratched the back of his head. "Only one other person, really – he and I taught our poison pokemon together. Last I knew he was killed before we unregistered trainers escaped to the Underground."

We didn't stick around for long after that – after all, there wasn't much evidence to be gained in trying to pursue a dead man now, was there? So we ended up heading back to port control and filing a report that was sent to grand admiral Desjardins, even though there really wasn't anything of real significance in it.

Despite the fact that Adrienne had carried out a psychic probe on Colin, I couldn't help but feel that something was amiss. Something just didn't seem right about the whole deal – sure, he might have known another poison specialist that was missing and presumed dead, but how could two trainers' teams be so similar? The whole affair was unsettling, to say the least.

When I voiced my concerns to General Harding, all he did was dismiss it, citing the reliability factor of a psychic probe.

"Spies normally have thorough anti-probing training," he had said, "and while Colin himself is no slouch at shielding himself was unwanted probing, Adrienne tells me that he did open up for her. So looks like the hunt will be on for that supposedly dead man."

"How would they know how to track him down?" I asked. "Did she pull those memories out of his head, too?"

"She did," he confirmed. "So the ball's now in the admiralty's court, I guess."

That seemed to settle it, and so I let the matter rest. We weren't intelligence operatives, and so our access to the records necessary for such manhunts was limited. The admiralty and Game Masters, however, were all capable of accessing practically any information that was available within the military, and so they would've been more suited to the task at hand, anyway. So I let it drop.

If only I had known then how close my earlier suspicions had been to the truth.

xxx

Things changed noticeably after the terrorist attacks. For one, security was tightened all over the place, making it near impossible to go anywhere without running into at least one security patrol group. Each group consisted of a soldier, a pokemon, and a digimon, making them tricky customers to get past, indeed.

If that sounded bad, imagine how things were like at the docks, train terminal, and other transit points – armed troops were stationed at all those locations around the clock. Everyone that wanted to go into or out of the transports was screened thoroughly, and anything even remotely suspicious reported even before the suspected terrorists were detained.

And to think that the arrests usually came within thirty seconds of the suspected individuals being spotted.

In addition to that, we began seeing more digimon troops about the place. As far as my memory went, we hadn't seen this many of them since the last days of the Revolution, when they were beginning to ship out in phases. Be it the ghoul-like bakemon and soulmon that roamed the streets or the disgusting numemon and sukamon that patrolled the sewers, digimon seemed to be everywhere.

When they turned in for the night in their specialized sleeping chambers – hovering mechanical monstrosities that were located near the city centres – the city was like a ghost town.

Within a month of the incident, more than half of Canalave's nocturnal business enterprises had been shut down due to a lack of patronage. While there wasn't a specific curfew being enforced – yet – few dared to wander the streets at night, thanks to the numerous patrol groups that kept the streets occupied. Most of the smarter proprietors began offering teleportation services to their regular customers, and so managed to cut their losses in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

No longer did the streets receive illumination from electrical lamps alone when night fell – groups of lampent and litwick were often part of the night patrols. During the day, tangrowth and ivysaur were common sights at street corners, along with various digimon.

And so, we settled down into an uneasy, controlled lifestyle, where someone had their eyes on us as long as we remained outdoors.

xxx

Meanwhile, the terrorist investigations were still ongoing. All personnel at port control were questioned at least once, including General Harding and I. Even the custodial crew were briefly put through a lightweight interrogation over their whereabouts on that one night, and Mary the receptionist was actually seen leaving her mug of morning coffee without putting up a fight for once.

Obviously, all of that made the task of obtaining evidence to be used against General Harding even more difficult than it had been to begin with.

While Silas and I were still allowed down at the vaults, the higher-ups had assigned a soldier and a pokemon to keep tabs on Babamon's activities. So when I left Silas at the vault, there was only so much he could do, really. I myself couldn't glean that much information from the archives department – Persiamon had been assigned a similar set of security agents as Babamon (though I think hers suffered more than Babamon's thanks to the pungent odor of hairspray that permeated the archives department).

So we ended up getting next to zero evidence that could be used against my beloved boss. The only upside to the whole situation was that if we could uncover any dirt on him, the authorities would probably whisk him away in the blink of an eye. And of course, corruption was suspected to be the terrorists' means of obtaining funding for their activities, which would lend more weight to the charges that I could potentially bring up against General Harding.

As an old song once went, the times they were a-changin'.

xxx

"- can you hear me?" a somewhat distorted voice asked, as I opened my eyes.

I tried to answer, but my throat felt as though a fistful of glass wool had been shoved down it. So I settled for nodding in response, instead.

"Can you speak to me?" the voice asked, sounding less distorted but still leaving me in the dark about its owner's gender.

Grimacing, I shook my head and tried to speak again; all that came out was a hoarse croak.

"It's a side-effect of the anaesthetic... you just need a drink. Anyways, can you see me?"

I looked up, and saw a blurry face swimming into my field of view. It seemed to be decked on in a surgical cap and mask, with what looked like a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles. A nod from me caused the person to let out a satisfied grunt.

"So, the procedure went very well, and you'll be hearing your pokemon speak to you once the chips are activated," he commented – now that my hearing was coming back to me, it was definitely distinguishable as a male voice. "You'll be up and running in no time, though your dinner might taste a little like cardboard."

All I could do was nod again, as a minor headache flared up and caused me to wince.

"Can you get yourself up? It's alright if you're a little uncoordinated, since the anaesthetic's still partially in effect."

I tried to move my arms, and succeeded. Shifting them backwards, I slowly propped myself up on my elbows, and sat up. True to the doctor's word, I could feel my arms being a little wobbly and numb, but for the most part they were functional. As I finally got myself into a fully upright position, I felt the world swimming a little around me – clearly they had put me under with some strong stuff.

"Alright – I'll hold up fingers, and I want you to do the same, alright?" the doctor said, coming closer. He held up three fingers. "How many am I holding up?"

While I stumbled a little, I managed to hold up three fingers for him to see. Satisfied, he took out a flashlight and began examining my eyes.

"Well, everything seems normal, so you're free to go once you can walk a straight line without collapsing," he said, laughing to himself as though he had made a great joke of some sort. "So, be sure to get something to eat soon, alright? I've told the cafeteria staff to set a small meal aside for you – tell them Dr. Song sent you."

He left the room, leaving me sitting on the bed with a headache. After a few minutes, my disorientation began to clear up a little, and so I decided to try stepping off the bed... only to fall flat on my face. And the floor was a hard linoleum floor, to boot.

My throat was too dry for me to even try to groan, so I decided to check if my nose was broken. Thankfully, it wasn't, so I began the task of getting back on my feet.

When I got to my feet, I saw that the bed was really the only thing in the room save for a small table on wheels, that was loaded with various surgical instruments. So I decided to head out of the door, which the doctor had thoughtfully left open for me.

Upon stepping out of the door, I saw that I was in one of the main corridors of the Canalave hospital. Shrugging to myself, I decided to walk down to the cafeteria – there were numerous signs at regular intervals along the corridor that helpfully showed the way to it.

As I walked along the corridor, I received quite a few stares and heard quite a few giggles. Apparently, getting an improvised mullet thanks to the surgery made me look funny, or something like that – my hair had been quite the shaggy mess before my surgery. Deciding that I would check out my 'new' look after I got something to eat, I continued on my walk to the cafeteria.

The stares and giggles continued all the way to the cafeteria, to my bewilderment – surely the haircut the doctor had given me couldn't be that bad?

xxx

When I arrived at the cafeteria, it was mostly empty save for a few nurses and doctors. No patients seemed to be in sight, other than myself. Heading for the counter, I called out to the blissey behind it.

"Umm, I was told that I had a meal ready here by Dr. Song."

The egg pokemon nodded happily, and reached under the counter. It brought out a plate of rice with some vegetables and a small omelette on the side, and that had been wrapped in cling-wrap. With a smile and a happy chirp, it handed me the plate.

"Thanks," I smiled at the blissey. "Umm, could I have a spoon?"

"Bliss!" the pokemon giggled, as it smacked itself in the forehead. Once again reaching under the counter, it dug out a plastic spoon and fork. "Blissey!"

"Ah, thanks," I nodded, as I took the cutlery from it. "By the way, is the haircut that bad?"

It regarded me for a second, before shaking its head with a smile. "Blissey."

Apparently, the chips weren't activated yet. "So it's not that bad, huh? Thanks!"

The pokemon beamed at me as I left the counter, making me wonder just why everyone had been staring and giggling at me all the way to the cafeteria.

That is, until one of the doctors who was eating called out to me, "Hey, kiddo!"

"Yes?" I looked up from my freshly-unwrapped meal.

"Just so you know, hospital gowns are open at the back," he said with a smirk.

With a start, I turned about to check my back, almost tipping my plate over in the process of doing so. Upon seeing for myself that the doctor had been right, I couldn't help but let out a groan.

Well, some of the people I passed might have been laughing or staring at the haircut, but apparently I had unintentionally mooned most of the hospital's population on the ground floor.