Giovanni noticed Persian's ears prick up, then heard for himself the distant click of heels in the marble hallway outside. The feline lounged across his desk, otherwise relaxed. The only other person in the room, a man with a stiff blue mohawk and a serious face that didn't seem to match the haircut, trailed off in his sentence.
"Boss?" he asked.
"...my four o'clock is early." Giovanni felt equal parts exasperated and curious when Miyamoto's meeting request had come through, but he knew better than to wear either on his face when he saw her. Instead, as he stood and smoothed his suit, he rearranged his expression into one he hoped read as pleasant reservation. "How do I look?" He turned to face the mohawked man.
The man approached Giovanni and plucked a tuft of Persian hair off his suit. "Great, boss. You don't seem annoyed at all."
Giovanni snorted in pretend offense. "Hush. Go now, Viper. And send them in."
The instruction was unnecessary. When Viper opened the door, two women strode right through, as if he were a porter at their cue.
Miyamoto led the charge, purple pigtails bouncing behind her, her own expression charged with excitement. Trailing her was the red-haired scientist from last night's laboratory fire. She wore the clicking heels, as well as a lab coat with the sleeves rolled back and front open over a blouse and skirt. As she passed under Viper's nose, the man looked her up and down, then shot Giovanni a look of lewd endorsement. Giovanni knit his brow in disapproval. Chagrined, Viper slipped from the room and shut the door softly behind him.
"Come on in," Giovanni said belatedly to the women, making a sweeping gesture from his door to the two chairs set before his desk. He stepped up to the chair nearest Ariana and placed his hands on its back, scooting it backwards in invitation. "Have a seat."
Miyamoto dropped into the other chair. Ariana smiled at Giovanni, then sat lightly. Once she was settled, Giovanni walked back behind his desk, easing into his own high-backed chair.
The moment Giovanni's rear touched the seat, Persian stood up on the desk and leapt into the young man's lap. That nothing was injured in the process spoke to the pair's familiarity with the maneuver. Ariana seemed startled by the Pokémon, but quickly recovered.
"So, you requested an urgent meeting, Senior Executive Miyamoto?" Giovanni asked, using Miyamoto's official title. He was being magnanimous in front of the scientist; any pettiness between him and Miya wasn't something he wanted to put on display in front of the underlings.
"We did. We have a proposition, but it's extremely time-sensitive," Miyamoto replied.
"And 'we' is you and…Miss Ariana? Am I to assume?" Giovanni asked, turning mid-sentence to nod at Ariana.
"Yes. We want to continue Ariana's experiment. We think it will be of tremendous value to the Boss."
"So why didn't you two book this meeting with her?"
"She already set a pitch deadline, but without a prototype on-hand, there's a concern she won't have enough evidence comprehend the true value of this project. This is a huge opportunity to leap ahead in the scientific field."
While Miyamoto spoke, Giovanni observed Ariana's face. He didn't know much about the woman, but he doubted she was as experienced at lying to him as Miyamoto was.
"Tell me what the aim of the project is."
Miyamoto opened her mouth again, but Ariana had already begun, "Hybrids of humans and Pokémon. I believe we are close to a technology that will allow human beings to wield the abilities of various creatures."
Giovanni and Miyamoto both stared at her, blinking in the silence that followed the statement, while Ariana's chest heaved as if she'd run up ten flights of stairs to deliver it.
In Giovanni's head, behind his stony face, calculations flew. Doubt was his first instinct, followed by annoyance at the preposterous assertion. But then he dared for a moment to entertain the alternatives. Under his hand, in his lap, purred a beast with lethal abilities, but accessing them meant forging a bond and training in tandem. If the power could be his alone to perfect…who knows what the limits might be? Could a person contain a Pokémon's powers? Did this woman have the key to unlocking their genetics? No doubt it would be valuable to possess if true. Discoveries of such magnitude were precisely why Rocket Labs recruited and funded so many different research teams.
She looked back and forth between Miyamoto and Giovanni, her wide grey eyes pleading for a response. Finally, Giovanni took a long breath. He folded his hands atop Persian's back and squared up facing Ariana.
"You can do this - give humans the powers of Pokémon?"
"I am 84% certain I can."
Giovanni closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them again, he was focused on the middle distance. This lasted a moment, before he pulled another breath and continued.
"I can see why you think a show-and-tell would be the most compelling presentation for Madame Boss. I would like to see as much myself."
Ariana's excitement was palpable. Next to Miyamoto's calculated presentation, Ariana's open ambition felt honest.
"...so what do you two need from me?"
~*~ℝ~*~
As Ariana clicked onto the last few slides of her presentation, Giovanni leaned into the screen that sat on his desk between them to get a better look. She counted the intensity of his interest as a point in his favor. He listened attentively when she spoke, had asked a few insightful questions, and now he was perusing the figures that Miyamoto had warned her against including. She stole a glance at the other woman.
Giovanni's thoroughness appeared to have the opposite effect on Miyamoto. The longer he examined slides and the more questions he asked, the more Miyamoto squirmed in her seat. It didn't help that Miyamoto sat just to the side of the monitor, and had to bend awkwardly to see the screen. Ariana had tried to make space earlier, but the large receiving chairs didn't leave much room for maneuvering.
The high-backed chairs looked expensive, and so did the lush carpet that would certainly hold imprints of the chair feet. Ariana knew better than to start rearranging a rich person's things, so she'd given up after a few attempts at scooting over.
The whole room looked expensive, naturally, but so impersonal. This can't be his usual base of operations, Ariana thought as she took in the polished, empty surfaces and abstract art. Jewel-tone fabrics and espresso-stained woods. Fresh roses in a short vase, moved carelessly aside to make room for her screen. In the corner beside his desk were the only signs anyone used this room at all; a dent in the loveseat cushion, white Persian hair on the couch, and a massive scratching post standing between the armrest and the wall.
Suddenly reminded of the Pokémon, Ariana glanced at Giovanni's lap. The Persian was gone. It was somewhere else in the room and she wasn't sure where. She paled, eyes wide.
"Miss Ariana?"
Ariana returned to attention, Giovanni's lap coming back into focus. Her head snapped up and she met his eyes. "Yes?" He looked concerned, and a little embarrassed.
Ariana suddenly felt a lot embarrassed. Her cheeks Pikachu'd. She caught a pointed look from Miyamoto out of the corner of her eye.
For the second time since they met, Giovanni gracefully delivered her from an awkward situation with a question.
"Your library of pre-sequenced material-" He was pointing to a step on the screen. "Do you have a list of what's available?"
In response, Ariana hurriedly clicked to her next slide. "I have an estimate here just based off file names, but part of the scope of our proposal is to catalogue what remains and in what percentages." The list on the page was already short, fewer than 30 donor candidates, and Ariana worried that some of that data had been further corrupted.
Giovanni read her list with a frown. Sequencing a new Pokémon's genetics was a process that started nearly from zero with each sample and usually took weeks to parse. So little was understood about the activations and expressions of their genes, but these mysteries and more were what Ariana truly hoped to uncover. In the present, however, Ariana only had access to data on species local to Mt. Moon.
"Rocket Corp has access to an extensive catalogue of rare and powerful Pokémon. I would prefer your prototype capable of a very convincing display if we're going to be advertising its abilities." Giovanni gestured to the presentation slide with the list of Pokémon. "Combining a person with a Rattata just seems needlessly cruel. And how would we tell we've succeeded? The teeth?"
Miyamoto snorted, but Giovanni looked at Ariana with a straight face.
"I'm sorry, sir, but the process of sequencing a new Pokémon's genetics would take longer than we have to present. To meet the deadline, we've got to work with what we have."
"Hm." Giovanni nodded, then averted his eyes to think.
Persian appeared suddenly, leaping from the ground into the highest point of its scratching post. Ariana exhaled in relief, no longer concerned it was lurking behind her.
Miyamoto cut into the silence. "Theoretically, any Pokémon splice will do. Even if the first subject can't use abilities, if we can show it's got a Pokémon's endurance, or another feature. If we can put the subject inside a capture device. We just need to prove we can combine the genetics."
"Humans inside Pokéballs…" Giovanni's brow furrowed. He turned his gaze to Miyamoto and she returned it. "I'm beginning to understand why you're getting involved here." Miyamoto looked away. Ariana didn't understand the insinuation, but she made a mental note to look into it later.
"Arguably, if they could be put into a Pokéball, they wouldn't be humans then, would they?"
It was Giovanni's turn to chuckle while Miyamoto kept a straight face.
"Alright." The young man straightened up in his chair and squared his shoulders to Miyamoto and Ariana. He wore a thin smirk, one Ariana had seen often on his face around campus; when he stood alone surveying the work of grunts or sitting in a meeting in one of the glass-walled meeting rooms. At a distance, it infuriated her. He looked smug and standoffish. Up close though, Ariana appreciated the air of confidence it lent him. How much the little quirk of his lip made it seem like he was smiling at her, and how pleased with herself that made her feel.
"You'll approve the budget?" Miyamoto asked.
"In stages."
"In stages?"
Giovanni nodded towards Ariana. "I'd like you to complete cataloguing the genetic material you have on hand. We'll discuss further steps once that process is complete."
"Giovanni, er, sir?" He didn't correct her. "I have a concern that this prioritizing may cut into the timeline for the rest of the experiment. As Miyamoto explained, any Pokémon genetics would technically suffice and there are parallel procedures that need to be initiated as soon as possible."
Ariana trailed off as his expression changed. His lips lost their quirk and his chin tilted down. There was the spoiled boy she was expecting, the child who didn't want to hear "no".
"Then you'd better be quick about it."
Eyes narrowing, Ariana tilted her own chin down and held his gaze. His eyes were brown with warm flecks of gold. Their edges crinkled as he smirked again, and she felt frustrated. Giovanni's order was as likely to sabotage the project as it was to move it forward, and she wasn't even sure which was his intention. Briefly, she considered firing up some of the machine processes anyway, but their toll on the base's carefully-regulated power grid would immediately set off alarms.
She stood up and gathered her few things. "I'll get started right now then, sir." Through the long, west-facing window behind Giovanni's desk, Ariana found herself squinting into the evening sun. She raised a hand to cover her eyes and looked back down at him. "When would you like to review the results?"
"In the interest of time, Miss Ariana, I will come and review them as soon as you have finished. Send a messenger here to my office or contact me on the pager system." Giovanni slipped a hand inside the breast of his black blazer and withdrew a thin plastic rectangle from a hidden pocket. He handed her the contact card.
"Yes, sir." Ariana received it with two hands and tucked it into a pocket of her lab coat. A petty plan was forming in her mind, renewing her resolve to work quickly on what was now considered the "first stage" of her project.
"You're wise to invest in this endeavor, Vice Boss Giovanni." Miyamoto was on her feet as well. She placed a hand at Ariana's elbow and guided the younger woman towards the door. Ariana let herself be led a few steps, then turned around to face the young man still sitting at his desk.
Swallowing her frustrations, she put on a smile and bent forward at the waist in a quick bow.
"Thank you, Vice Boss Giovanni, for your interest in my project," she said, repeating his full title after Miyamoto, "I hope to be an asset to Rocket Corp."
Beside her, Miyamoto huffed at the reused lines and continued to the door. With her back turned, the other woman didn't catch Giovanni's smile in reply. Ariana wished she had, so later on, she could ask her what she thought it meant- how he'd held her gaze and how his lips pulled back to show a flash of his white teeth.
