Chapter Eleven: Technical Machines
Drex had given her an address. He told her to call in sick to work and meet her there at 6 AM. She had never called in sick before, and feared this might push Hank over the edge. But she had come this far; she was going to confront a Ghost and threaten them into talking; she was risking her life. In truth, she really must have been sick.
She text Hank immediately, saying she had been up all night with a fever, and wouldn't be able to come in this morning. It was close to three o clock, but Hank replied within minutes. Your contract allows you three sick days a year. So legally, I cant refuse you. But this better mean your ma is on deaths door. Or that you are. Ill see you tomorrow.
Sapphire tried to get a couple hours of sleep. She failed. Scenes from the story so far kept replaying in her mind. Meeting Drex, the Dark-Side district, the Ditto, and now a Ghost, each instance tearing a little piece from her life. She was nearly naked in the dark now, scrambling amongst dead and desperate things, hoping the monsters wouldn't notice her.
When the time came, she did her best to steady herself; she showered, dressed inconspicuously, made sure she had a hood and scarf, packed her gun, wore sensible shoes, downed three shots of vodka, and left her apartment.
She had to look up the address Drex had given her. It was to the south, right on the edge of town, not really part of Cerulean City at all. The impressive structures and urban density eventually gave way to a ramshackle spread of slums. There were a few old, crumbling buildings, prewar, and barely standing - but most of the area was comprised of shanty houses. This must have been what Hank had meant, she thought, when he warned of desperation.
Most of the homes didn't have addresses; on her phone, her map showed most of this as empty space. It led her to one of the buildings, a thing of brown brick and broken windows. The door wasn't locked, it barely closed. She entered a long abandoned warehouse, now managed by dust, employing stale air to oversee the archival of dead and forgotten memories. For all its emptiness, Sapphire felt fenced in by the echoes of what had happened here.
There were bullet holes in the walls and floor. Scorch marks on the fallen shelves. Cracks so much deeper, and wider, and longer than those in her apartment - cracks that would soon fall apart.
Drex stood at the top of a set of metal stairs. A door behind him led to what Sapphire assumed were some offices. He did not speak. He simply waited.
Sapphire climbed the stairs and followed Drex. He lived and worked within a small group of neatly kept but decaying rooms. She did not have time to properly take them in, though she noticed a half opened door, a mattress, a lamp, and a pile of books with an empty bottle to pair each one.
Drex took her into the furthest office. The room was bare, dusty and scarred, collapsing as most of it was. The only things of note inside the room were a desk, two chairs, and a computer. And a box in the corner, full of cables and shapes she could not discern in the shadow.
The Farfetch'd closed the door. "Sit down," he said, before going over to the box of cables and dragging it towards the desk.
She sat in the chair, facing the computer. "If you're trying to scare me out of coming, Drex, all you've done is make me feel sad for you."
Drex laughed. "You should feel sad for me, Miss Sapphire." Rummaging through the cables, he grumbled with frustration. "I live in this shithole, which, even more sadly, is actually my nicest safehouse."
Fidgeting in the crusty, rusted chair, Sapphire rolled her eyes. She didn't know why he insisted on making a show of this. They could have met in the street and been there by now. "Why am I here, Drex?"
"I told you, Miss Sapphire; I won't let you go unarmed."
"And I told you, I have the gun. What are you going to give me? Another flaming knife? A flamethrower? Actually a flamethrower would probably be pretty useful, though I don't know how we'd sneak it through the streets."
"We sneak it inside you," replied Drex, deadpan and unkind.
Sapphire leaned back and cocked an eyebrow. "What?"
"Ah!"
Drex had pulled a small metal square from the box. It looked like a case, flat and no larger than a few inches in length, the number 30 carved into its front. His exclamation had been one of joy, but he now looked upon his finding with a certain uncertain dread. It felt like he was holding something evil… something necessary… but entirely evil.
"What is that?" Sapphire asked, her voice unwittingly hushed.
"You know how they killed all the Alakazam?"
There was something unpleasant in Drex Dreagle's voice. "Yeah, I've heard stories," she replied.
"They didn't kill all of them immediately. They captured some." He placed the small metal case on the desk, before returning to the box and pulling out cables. "Most Pokemon have obvious physiological distinctions - limbs or glands or other organs, that allow them to fly, or breathe fire or generate electrical currents. But there are some Pokemon who manipulate reality with only their brains. And before we can work out how Pokemon who are made of sludge, or gas or fire, manifest a mind - we must work out how the ones that defy the laws of physics with only their mind, do it."
Sapphire didn't like the way he was talking - not what he was saying, but how he was talking. There was something dreadful in it, paranoid and indifferent.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
Drex sighed, plugging cables into the computer. "You don't know how this war started do you?" Pressing a button, the computer groaned into life, whirring and clicking. "It started with people asking questions, trying to work out the chaos, trying to control it."
"I thought you said this was about Alakazams being killed in the war?"
Drex chuckled. "Exactly… trying to work out became trying to control. If you're already researching how certain brains can manipulate reality, why not see if you can teach other brains to do the same?"
Sapphire had told the truth before, when she'd said she wasn't scared; repeating it would be a lie. The things coming out of Drex's mouth were only half making sense, as she half listened and half panicked, consumed by that half collapsed building.
Sitting up straight and swallowing, she mustered some authority. "If you don't get to the point soon, I'm going to leave." Flashing a look at the small artefact that had started all this, she demanded to know. "What is that?"
Drex dropped his shoulders and sighed, some of the darkness slipping away. "It's a TM… a technical machine, or technique machine, or temporary memory; we could never confirm what the abbreviation stood for. But we know they called it TM."
Amongst her conflict, confusion and dread, something small stepped forward; a tiny, hesitant empathy, unnoticed until now, wanted to ask a question. She let it. "You've said who twice. You're not talking about me and you."
"I wasn't always fighting this fight alone, Miss Sapphire. I didn't always live in places like this."
Sapphire's eyes widened. "You fought on the other side?"
"I still fight on the other side."
Drex stepped over, dragging the second chair, and began typing away at the computer. He loaded up a program in code that Sapphire couldn't discern, before plugging the TM into the machine. Hopping down, he resumed fumbling with the cables.
"For the last time, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to upload this TM into your brain. I'm going to give you a weapon that can kill a Ghost." He attached the cables to something that resembled a foil hat, and approached Sapphire. "If you really want to come with me, this is what it's going to take."
"Wait, what?"
Drex sighed. "We don't have time for you to get precious now; this is war, Miss Sapphire."
She pushed back in the chair. "Is it safe?"
"It's safer than you going in there without it."
Sapphire swallowed hard. "What will it do?"
Drex approached. "TM 30 is supposed to give you the ability to discharge bursts of concentrated anti matter."
"And you're sure it works on humans?"
"I've seen it work before."
Sapphire started to stand up. "This is insane Dex, I don't know about this."
The Farfetch'd dropped the cables and pointed at her. "You wanna give me an ultimatum, play it big league like you know what you're doing? Fine. But here's my ultimatum: you put this damn cap on and I boot up this TM, otherwise we're through, and all this was for nothing. We're at war, Miss Sapphire. You may have been able to pretend that we're not your whole life, but we are. And we're losing so bad we don't even know what the enemy wants anymore. The Ghosts are funding bribery and assassination within their own government. Things are only getting worse. So either you leave, try and put the pieces of your life back together, and go back to pretending. Or you accept that history will forget everything you've ever done up until this moment - for now, you are a soldier."
Sapphire felt the pull of something great and terrible - it might have been destiny, or it might have been destruction. Eitherway, her instinct was to let it take her. She wondered briefly at how she had gotten here; it seemed that Drex had trapped her from the start. She had never seen this side of him, but all his actions had foreshadowed his philosophy. Drex Dreagle hadn't come to question her in that alley; he was recruiting her; he had needed someone on the inside. Drex wasn't a private investigator, he was an insurrectionist.
Sapphire tried not to wonder how many others he'd recruited.
"I'll put on the cap," she said, sitting back down. "But first, you have to answer one question for me."
"What?"
"If you had managed to prove Hank was having people killed using company money, what would you have done?"
"I would have informed his clients."
Sapphire's eyes widened. "Why?"
"If CCPR collapsed, it would have left Hank vulnerable to coercion."
"You wanted to turn Hank into a snitch. There weren't any allegations, were there? It was just you."
Drex scoffed. "Why should that matter now? I was right, wasn't I? And if we can turn them against each other we might have a chance at bringing them down. It appears they have already turned against each other, meaning we need to move, and quickly."
She scoffed. "How long have you been doing this? Have you managed to make any actual difference?"
Drex gave her a look that reminded her stomach how to turn. "Do not doubt the effectiveness of my methods, or the network I have built. Hank 'The Tank' Harrison is not the first asshole I have brought down. You have no idea how much worse it would be for humans in this city, if it wasn't for me."
Sapphire tried not to laugh. "So what, Drex Finnius Dreagle is going to save us all?"
Drex slammed his wing against the desk and gave out a small frustrated cry. "Drex Finnius Dreagle has sacrificed his entire life trying… trying to help you save yourselves. Now you can help by trying with him, or you can go back to propping up your own oppression."
"You know what, Drex? You're actually kind of an asshole."
Drex gave a small smirk, his eyes awash with resignation. "War will do that to you, Miss Sapphire." He picked the cables back up and sighed. "Now are you going to put this on, or not?"
Sapphire squared her shoulders. "Sure Drex, whatever you say. I'm used to doing what Pokemon tell me to anyway."
Nothing more was said. Drex placed the cap on Sapphire's head, typed something into the keyboard, connected two final cables, and everything went dark. The last things Sapphire could discern were a high pitched ringing and a sharp pain in her head. It wasn't long before she was unconscious.
Some horrendous dream, full of shifting black shapes and a voice speaking an alien language, distorted her perception of time. But soon, or eventually, she returned to the world, weary and bleary eyed.
Sapphire was alone in the office, a deep ache in her head, and a strange energy humming through her veins. Drex was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear voices coming from behind her.
Struggling out of the chair, she wandered out of the room and down the hall. When she got to the top of the staircase she could see where the voices were coming from. Drex, a Charizard, and a human were standing in the middle of the warehouse.
She could see Drex rubbing his brow as he spoke. "You keep repeating yourself, Brellia… which is making me repeat myself. I appreciate what you're saying, I really do, but I just don't have time to help you. I have my own shit going on."
"This is more important than your conspiracies, Drex," replied the Charizard, with deep, reptilian command.
"So you keep saying, and so I keep disagreeing."
"I have aided you in times of danger."
"And I have helped keep that damn tower of yours fed and watered for fucking years now, Brellia. And where have they been, huh? Hiding. And now they can't hide anymore, I have to come running. They are not the only one who-"
"Who is that?" The Charizard locked its eyes on Sapphire, and raised one huge claw. "Who are you hiding, Drex Dreagle?"
"People are just loving the use of my full name today."
Sapphire began to make her way down the stairs. "My name is Sapphire, I've been helping Drex with his investigation."
The Charizard chuckled, a small flare, followed by smoke, escaping its maw. "And how many will it take, Drex, before you realise this is not the way?"
Sapphire hoped the 'many' referred to investigations, and not human recruits.
"I'm onto something big this time, Brellia, I'm telling you. The Ghost are conspiring against the military."
"And so what if they are? Let them. It is more important that we deliver Al to the resistance."
Drex picked some scrap off the ground and through it against a wall. "Why? And why now? Just because they've been caught? After all these years, they don't just get to upend everything, get to act like they're in charge, just because they are what they are."
The Charizard exhaled a deep smouldering breath. "Still, my friend, they are what they are."
"What are they?" asked Sapphire. She had reached the bottom of the staircase. She looked over the human who was with them; he was a young man, wearing mostly denim, his eyes overwhelmed. He looked over her too; humans reaching out in an inhuman world.
"Is she to be trusted?" asked Brellia.
"She-" Drex froze in midspeech. He sniffed the air and looked around. "Get out of here."
"What?" asked the Charizard.
"Now!" shouted Drex. "Get out of here, now!"
A small point of twisting darkness pulled itself out of the air between them. The tiny black patch, floating in the middle of the trio, suddenly let out a screeching wail and erupted outward.
Drex lept back into a roll.
Brellia picked up the young man and flung him across the room, before she was consumed by the nightshade.
"You said they didn't notice you follow them!" shouted Drex's voice as the whole warehouse went dark.
Sapphire looked around in panic, but this time she didn't freeze. Immediately she made for the centre of the warehouse where the three had been standing. She rushed towards Drex, coughing against some toxic fume in the air.
The Farfetch'd, half consumed by shadow, slashed in pursuit of some grinning apparition. His blade seemed to cut through one of the creature's glowing eyes, which sent it flying back.
Sapphire opened her mouth to speak, but was forced to the ground. A barely visible beast of jagged darkness loomed over her; its face flashed in and out of comprehension; she could feel its ice-cold claws, like manifested midnight, grappling and tearing at her flesh.
Something strange and unknown surged within her. It was like her soul wanted to scream. She let it. A blast of shadow, even blacker than the darkness, burst from out her hands. The monster screamed, tearing into pieces, and vanished.
Scrambling in the darkness, Sapphire slammed into something solid and hot. A huge torrent of flame erupted from what, or who, she had found. Brellia burned both the spectres and shadows before her, setting fire to the building and illuminating the area. The Charizard's right side was scarred with dark, veiny legions - but she was very much alive.
She looked down at Sapphire and smiled. "I have her! she bellowed, her claw flashing as it banished another Ghost from this world. "I have Sapphire!"
Sapphire noticed another gaseous monster flying down from the ceiling. She pointed at it, letting out a second burst of shadow. The void-forged missile crashed into the Ghost, pulling it apart. Sapphire could see Brellia watching, her eyes overcome by shock.
"Get out of here!" Drex shouted, his voice coming from somewhere unseen. "You don't have time to save everyone. I'll do what I can for the other."
Brellia growled, picking up Sapphire. "His name is Crimson!"
Before she could speak, Sapphire felt herself being lifted into the air. She heard the roof being torn apart by the Charizard's flight, and smelt the air grow fresh. Within a moment she was hundreds of feet above Cerulean City. She was free. She was safe. She was a soldier.