Chapter Six: The Dark-Type District

Sapphire had found herself where the bad things happened.

Take care of yourself, Miss Sapphire, lotta dangerous folk around here. Drex Dreagle's words repeated over and over in her head - his tiny, unmistakable silhouette, striding into a fading distance. Mr. Harrison… illegally funnelled company money… Covert Special Ops Division… his second wife and his daughter's fiance. The weight of the envelope in her hands. The sleepless hours and the seventeen cups of coffee. The evidence burnt into her memory. Photographs. Company expense reports. Private emails. Official federal memos. Timelines and motives all leading one way.

Drex was right.

And so here she was, surrounded by neon lights and low hanging structures, all-but underground; she had followed her boss to the part of town where the bad things happened.

Sapphire had only been told in vague terms where the DTD got its name. Hank had said something about Pokemon being labelled, fitting into categories, sometimes for good reason. There are dark Pokemon, Hank explained, They were left alone, so long as they did what they were expected to. Doesn't seem to matter much anymore though… whole world's gone dark-type these days. She could remember, so clearly, the way that he laughed, the smoke rising from between his teeth. Still some places… some places like to keep it real traditional with their… degradations. DTD is old school, and ain't no school like the old school.

As everything in Cerulean City, Sapphire assumed it was mostly a story, a marketing ploy; The Pokemon told it to the humans to keep them in line, to each other to feel important, and to themselves because they had been told to tell it. But repeat something enough, and it becomes true - Hank had also taught her that. And so, she had never been to the DTD, the dark-type district, before.

What she found was a buckled over, folded in, maze of twisted, integrated buildings, sloping streets, flashing signs, burrowing alleyways and meandering paths. It desperately wanted to be beneath the city, descending at every turn, blocking as much sky as it could, leading from gemini doorways down dimly lit stairs.

Hank 'The Tank' Harrison had come in a large black car, not far off eleven. And Sapphire had followed, in a smaller car, a few minutes later. She wasn't sure what she was doing, other than following her boss, sure he would do something illegal. Terrified out of her mind, trying to stay hidden behind the brutish bulk of shop-fronts, aggressive Pokemon vendors and desperate human vagrants, she stalked.

A Wigglytuff pushed sleeping, half dressed humans into the street; a Hypno offered smouldering palms of sweet, sublime oblivion; a Starmie stared silently, promising to passers by, a soothing watery whisper. A shop-sign flashed as a Graveler tattooed a Kangaskan, a young man covered in dirt handed them their tools. A Sudwoodo hacked up meat and served it, a young girl mopping up the blood. A Ralph read cards for a desperate audience, children picking pockets around them. Scarred pokemon and staggering humans wandered and stood in between, eager or fearful, like rats and their catchers. .

Making her way through, trying her best to avoid attention, Sapphire followed Hank to a large metal archway. The entrance had no sign. It was dug deep into the pavement. A black tunnel with flickering red lights. A few minutes wandering and Sapphire found a Rhyhorn standing guard. It grunted as it saw her, squaring its shoulders and backing up; the iron gate behind it whined as rock scraped metal.

Instinctively she sputtered "I'm with Hank, he left something in the car." The rock-plated Pokemon looked her up and down before rolling its eyes. Stamping twice on the floor, it waited for the gate to open. "Really something else…" it muttered.

Sapphire couldn't help but ask. "What is?"

With a half disdainful smirk the Rhyhorn shook its head. "Hank, to get you to come after him… here. That guy's a piece of work. Keep your head down kid, try not look anyone in the eye."

She nodded meekly and walked passed as quickly as she could.

It was not long before she heard the shouting. A crowd was cheering, jeering, quarrelling and goading. The smell of blood and sweat and death followed the noise, hanging on it like hooked meat. Sapphire sensed her whole self shrinking. She was a tiny, fragile child in the presence of a monster - and the monster hadn't noticed her yet. But she could feel it… like a sickness in her bones.

Slinking down a dirty, jagged tunnel of cracked concrete and bent infrastructure, she eventually came round a corner and into the main room.

She wanted to throw up.

It was an auditorium.

A fighting pit.

A huge ring filled with Pokemon - laughing, shouting, smoking, drinking - and a dirty hole with two young men, beating each other to death with clubs.

There was Hank on the far side of the room, beating his chest and booming, as one young man cracked the other's skull open. Hank slammed his hand down with the final blow, and roared. "THAT'S MY BOY!" he cried.

Sapphire turned and ran.

The gate was still open. The Rhyhorn didn't try to stop her. "Told you, kid," she heard it mutter beneath the pounding of her feet.

This was worse than she had imagined. Worse than Drex had shown her, or at least more brutal. Did the government know about this? They had to. It wasn't exactly being hidden. They had just let her in. They didn't even ask her any questions. But if the government knew, then how did no one else?

She thought back to her hometown, to her mother and Emily, to nights round the fire, to dreams of a job in the big city, to not being worried about money, to moving them down and living in fast-paced comfort - but these thoughts did not last long.

Sapphire couldn't get the smell of that boy's blood out of her nose. The sight of Hank's face. The sound of the crowd. The words THAT'S MY BOY!

THAT'S MY BOY!

THAT'S MY BOY!

So what was she? Was she his girl? Would she be down there if she hadn't interviewed so well, talked so fast and took his bullshit? Had she seen that boy in the office before? Was that Dylan? Oh fuck, was that Dylan?

Her heart raced faster and faster. She was struggling to breathe. As she stumbled into an alleyway she felt the walls either side growing taller and taller. She was going to faint… when a voice cut through the chaos.

"Mam? Excuse me, mam! What are you doing down here? I need to speak to you."

A man in a black suit stood at the end of the alley. His skin reflected the streetlights with a near laminated sheen, and his eyes… there was something wrong with his eyes. As he began to walk towards her, Sapphire froze. His pace quickened and his brow furrowed. She knew he was going to attack her, but still, Sapphire couldn't bring herself to move.

The man began to smile, reaching out towards her, mere feet away.

BANG

A shot sounded from behind him as the man's head burst open, pink goo spraying across the alley in gelatinous lumps.

The man did not stop.

BANG

A second shot, and the man's right arm exploded. Sapphire noticed that the stumps, where his neck and shoulder used to be, were viscous, bubblegum jelly leaking and fusing with his flesh and suit.

Still, what was left of the man did not stop.

"Catch!" shouted a familiar voice.

A handgun flew over the staggering zombie and Sapphire caught it.

"Shoot!"

Sapphire aimed at the still encroaching monster, and fired. A hole erupted in its chest - no blood, no stagger, only more pink goo.

Finally, she saw him. From behind the creature, Drex Deagle darted. The Farfetch'd pulled a huge hunting knife from under his open coat, poured something onto the blade, and lit it on fire. With three lightning swipes, Drex cut the creature into burning pieces. As Sapphire and Drex watched the man melt into a smouldering pile of bubbling ooze, the Farfetch'd extinguished his blade.

Drex lent over the steaming puddle and quickly reached inside, pulling out a small metal box. He took the gun from Sapphire, placed the box on the ground, and fired one last shot into it. The mechanism sparked and whined, ceasing to function. Smoke rose silently from the bullet hole.

Taking Sapphire by the arm, the Farfetch'd looked up at her. "We have to get out of here. Now."

Unable to process any of the night's events, it wasn't until Sapphire found herself with a coffee in her hands that she spoke. "What the fuck just happened?" She took in a heavy breath and sunk into her seat. Drex had taken them to a small all-night diner in a rundown human neighbourhood. The waitress knew his name. No one else was in there. Sapphire shakily pulled a clump of pink goo from her hair. "What were you doing in that alley?"

Drex poured whiskey from a metal flask into his coffee, and followed it up with five sugars. "I was following you, obviously."

"Why?"

"I wanted to see what you'd do." He took a sip. "I wouldn't just give someone that information and set them loose without following up." He forced a smile. "I'm a professional, Miss Sapphire."

"What was that thing?"

The Farfetch'd cocked a feathered eyebrow, the crack in his beak stained with coffee. "What do you think it was?"

Sapphire rubbed her temples and tried not to have another panic attack. "A Ditto?"

Drex nodded.

"I thought it was illegal for them to transform into living things?" she felt stupid as soon as she'd asked. She could smell the blood again. See Hank's face… hear him shouting THAT'S MY BOY!

"On paper, sure," replied Dex, who gestured to the waitress. She quickly brought him a slice of cherry pie. "Thanks, V," he said, with genuine gratitude. Skewering a large piece of pie and eating it with all the consideration befit a dying man, Drex lifted his gaze. He watched Sapphire with two heavy eyes, one scarred where you could see it, both scarred somewhere else. "That's the story they told to keep the people quiet. But truth is, there's no way they'd let it rest there. Dittos are one of the only Pokemon the government fears; think about it - you can't keep control with a bunch of people running about looking and sounding like whoever they want - soldiers, politicians, lovers." He took another mouthful of pie. "So near the end of the war the government rounded them all up, put them to work, found a way to control them."

Sapphire leaned towards him; even after everything, somehow it was darker than she knew. "How?"

"Story goes…" began Drex, his spirit enkindled by pie and the chance to regale. "There was an engineer, worked for the Devon Corporation, who was designing some kind of digital neural link - a machine that would let people share their conscious experiences in real time." He took a sip of his coffee, "Project XP Share, they called it. After Hoenn surrendered, it fell into the government's hands. They finished it, expanded it, and put it inside every Dittot they hadn't killed yet. Some sources suggest they sterilised them after that." Drex considered his pie before pushing the plate aside. "So yeah… everywhere they go, everything they see, even everything they think, is immediately uploaded to some government database housed on a black site, buried beneath more levels of clearance than an agoraphobic Diglett could get under. That little box I pulled out and shot… that's what that was." Shaking his head, Drex poured more whiskey into his coffee. "The perfect army of spies. Walking CCTV, able to look like anyone or anything you can imagine."

Sapphire grimaced. She pulled Drex's plate over and took a handful of pie. "You can tell them by the eyes. The eyes are wrong."

Drex smiled, a little pride lighting in his stare. "They are." Watching Sapphire as she ate, Drex nearly chuckled. "Do you want a slice of your own?"

Sapphire nodded, suddenly famished.

"V, another slice, please." As the waitress brought the pie over, Drex pulled a small, compass-like mechanism from his pocket. "Speaking of spies, I brought this for you."

Sapphire took the device and looked it over. It was warm in her hand.

"What is it?"

"It's a signal jammer. It'll stop any phone within ten feet or so from sending home everything it hears and sees."

Sapphire cocked an eyebrow; "Sending home?"

Finally, Drex did chuckle. "Miss Sapphire, when push came to shove, the scientists were the first to start shoving their own. Your man Bill was the first of the first. That phone in your pocket, technology for humans, by humans… the High Chancellor's favourite little pet is keeping tabs on everyone. Why do you think he lives so comfortable, up there in his big, shiny tower?" Drex took a sip of his coffee, wincing at the whiskey underneath. "I carry one wherever I go; don't worry, Bill aint heard as much as a telling gasp from our little chats."

Pocketing the signal jammer, Sapphire tried to concentrate on how good the pie was, and not on how the whole world wanted her dead.

Drex finished his coffee in one gulp and wiped his beak with feather fingers. "Last thing," he began, his tone turning so grave Sapphire felt it in her throat. "Tomorrow morning the feds will be at your office. They'll say their city police, but they won't be. It'll be the F.P. They will ask you where you were last night, and you will tell them you went to dark-side district to buy drugs. They will ask you if anything happened, and you will tell them you shot a man in self defence in a dark alley." The Farfetch'd didn't break his gaze or pause his speech for even a second; these weren't suggestions, these were orders. "One human shooting another in the bad part of town, the government doesn't care about that. What they do care about- What they will care about is whether you realised what you shot was in fact a ditto, and not some lowlife who took a bad bet on an armed woman and lost." Reaching across the table, Drex Dreagle gripped Sapphire's wrist. "Whatever you do, you have to convince them you're blind to what really went down. You went to pick up drugs. A man came at you in an alley. You shot him…" Drex tapped her knee from under the table; he was handing her the gun. "You shot him with your gun."

She took the pistol and shoved it into her waistband. "My mother gave it to me before I moved here. She was scared, said the city is a dangerous place."

Drex smiled and pulled his hand away. "Hank likes you, lean on that. He'll more than happily believe you were just picking up for a party."

Sapphire's eyes widened, but her stomach neither dropped nor turned. "The bouncer at the… the club, he saw me."

"The government won't care about that so long as you keep your mouth shut about it. Don't mention it to Hank either, we need him to trust you; we need him to underestimate you."

Sapphire nodded, no longer thinking; she was reacting now, running off instinct, adrift in a conspiratorial flow state. "What comes next?"

Drex sighed. "We'll deal with what comes next if next comes at all." Stepping out of his chair and buttoning his coat, the Farfetch'd finally took his eyes away from her. She could feel him disconnecting, severing whatever bond they had formed. Drex was turning himself back into a stranger. "Drink your coffee, eat your pie. Pay cash. Watch your back." He flicked his collar up and turned.

As he walked towards the door, Sapphire called out. "Drex?"

"Yeah?" he replied, stopping but not turning back.

"Should I be scared?"

"Yes, Miss Sapphire. The complacent get killed. And the comfortable… they get eaten."

As she stumbled home, stumbled into her cold and cramped apartment, and stumbled into bed, Sapphire wanted to call her mom. She wanted to call Emily, and cry, and scream, and hear her say Babe, just come back home. But she didn't. Something was calcifying inside her. Some nerve, deep in the primal part of her system, was being severed. The city was anaesthetising her.

When she had asked Drex if she should be scared… she wasn't.

And that… that did frighten her.

So she fell asleep devoid of anxiety. She dreamt of a Cerulean City that no longer existed. She saw a sky ablaze with Fuchsia light, and heard a voice inside her head, imploring her to Be not afraid… and Accept your place in the new world order.

Drex was right. The text that woke her up read: Come straight to office. Don't get coffee. Will send acne face to get coffee. Karl? Come straight to office, my office - the filth are here. Remember one and only truth.

When she arrived, Hank was sat behind his desk, already three cigars and half a bottle of scotch deep. He didn't seem worried, or even angry, just bored and a little annoyed. On top of that, the look he gave her suggested he was not annoyed with her.

He slapped a hand on the table, poured a second glass of scotch and thrust it at her. "Here she is! Go on then, grill her like she's marinated Magikarp, and see if she fucking flinches. I promise you fellas, my girl will not fucking flinch."

She took the drink, drowning the urge to heave when Hank called her my girl.

Stood in the office were two Pokemon dressed in black suits and fuchsia ties.

One was a bird, statuesque and motionless, radiating a silence that killed thought. Its huge eyes dragged you in, distracting from its carven shape, featherless features, and unshifting, unbreathing, block of body. A round, emerald face, highlighted by a single crimson plume, considered Sapphire with indifferent supremacy - an analyst deconstructing data.

It was a Xatu, and Sapphire did her best to clear her mind.

The other was a plant, piercing through its suit, with a thousand quivering spines. Its sinewy flesh stretched tough and rubbery over fists and face. Two yellow eyes, kindled in the chasms of cimmerian depths, illuminated a cracked, crepuscular smile, cut into the creature's face. A fairytale monster - the thing that hides betwixt the trees.

Sapphire knew it for a Cacturn, and she tried not to make any sudden movements.

"I am Special Agent Lincoln Lethe," began the Xatu, speaking without sound. "This is my partner, Special Agent Krin. We have a few questions for you, Miss Sapphire."

She couldn't help but hear Drex's voice when they called her Miss Sapphire. He was wrong about one thing; they didn't pretend to be city police.

"Go on," shouted Hank, waving a hand dismissively. "Ask your questions. We have work to do today, you know. She may not look it, but without her things move a lot slower in this city, and without us moving this city along, bloodsucking nerds like you don't get paid. So tick off your checklist and get the fuck out of my office." Hank shook his head, turning to Sapphire with a look of shallow sympathy so egregiously dishonest it cut her scotch with antifreeze.

"Where were you last night, Miss Sapphire?"

Sapphire downed her scotch and sighed. The spotlight was on her, and she was ready to give the performance of a lifetime. Afterall, her life depended on it.

Giving the answers Drex had fed her, looking ashamed but not too ashamed, and showing just enough disdain for authority as to keep Hank smiling, Sapphire appeased the federal police. They looked her over one last time, said they'd be in touch, and made to leave the office.

"Try not to trip on your lifeless dicks, you joyless, dead-eyed, pencil-pushing pricks! And fuck me, go see a tailor, or just work from home!" Hank 'The Tank' Harrison, standing up, milked the moment for everything it had. "Oh, and next time, try to remember - if someone at CCPR was worth being carted off, they wouldn't be here when you arrived." He stubbed out his cigar. "You work with red tape, I work with red fucking ink, my friend."

The door was about to close when Special Agent Krin turned around. "One last thing, Miss Sapphire…" The Cacturn's voice shifted before it stabbed. "Can you explain why there were bullet holes found in both ends of the alley?"

Sapphire didn't hesitate. "I don't know if you've ever been in a fight that wasn't just beating on someone smaller than you, but when you're scared for your life, you don't stand in one place."

The Cacturn nodded and closed the door.

Hank laughed, "What did I say, my girl doesn't flinch." He lumbered over to her and refilled her glass. "Look, Saph, I don't care what you were doing last night; what you do out of hours is your business, so long as it don't fuck with my business." He placed one, heavy paw on her shoulder, squeezing just a little too tight. "So just don't fuck with my business, okay?"

Sapphire nodded.

"Good girl." Sitting back in his chair, the Blastoise smiled. "Now… knowing you're willing to just lay someone out… you cold, cold son-of-a-bitch. We have a client another client would rather not be."

Sapphire swallowed, paused, and took another drink. "Not be our client?"

Hank made malice manifest on his face. "No. Just… not be."

"I'm not killing two people in twenty-four hours."

The Blastoise roared with laughter. "No, we don't kill people for money. We only do that for pleasure." He poured the last of the scotch into his glass. "I need you to plant a camera in a hotel room."

"What's going to happen in this hotel room?" she asked, secretly dreading the answer, but smiling anyway.

"Something that will require us, as good citizens, to call the police… and tell a lie."

"What lie?"

"That you can't just get away with anything… Mr Commissioner."