Pokemon (Detective Pikachu)

A Legendary Search

20. Unabandoned Lab and Unexpected Help

Outside, Tim and Pikachu passed the ridiculously large stage, and made their next couple of stops: Tim bought a new notebook, and used a payphone to call a taxi.

It was annoying, but with the car the detective agency had been letting him use destroyed, he didn't have any other way to get where he needed to go. He made sure to call a flying Taxi, which were more expensive, but faster. He worked out the time he would need to get back for the debate, as well, and arranged for a second flying taxi to pick him up at the same location he would be dropped off at.

He instructed the pilot to drop him off at the side of the road, as close to the lab as he could get without having the pilot go down the old, disused road to the ruined building and telling the slightly confused man that he was meeting family for a picnic that they'd wanted to have far enough from the city that it would seem like they were in the middle of nowhere. Pikachu warned him against risking anyone else knowing what he was doing; after all, the person who released Keith was still out there, and an old ruin would be a good place for an ambush if they realized he was there. Tim was pretty sure right now that no one had followed; he would have seen any other cars on the road or Pokemon with passengers in the air.

Once they were there- it didn't take long by flying taxi, thankfully, but it still felt like too long to Tim- he and Pikachu headed away from the road towards where the disused base was hidden. The trip there was mostly uneventful, aside from the rustling of wild Pokemon around them. They had to pass through a thick line of trees that hid it from the road; when they reached the other side, they paused for just a moment to look at the remains of the decrepit building.

It was a good thing they had stopped. While the first thing Tim noticed was the rusting fencing and danger signs, Pikachu noticed something else. Tim was about to take his first step towards the building when Pikachu called,

"Tim, wait! Don't move!"

Tim froze.

"What? What is it, Pikachu?"

Pikachu gestured. "Look over there- right there. What do you see?"

Tim looked where Pikachu was pointing, and blinked.

"Is that… a camera?"

"You bet it is, and there's a red light on it that's blinking. That camera is turned on and recording."

Tim swallowed. Luckily, they were both outside of its range for the moment, but a few careless steps might have shown whoever monitored that camera that he was there.

Tim scanned the area more carefully, and spotted more cameras. He was relieved to see that none of them seemed to be trained as far as the line of trees they were standing at the edge of, but any further, and he and Pikachu would be clearly visible to anyone watching.

Watching… whoever might approach this old, ruined building.

"You know what this means, right?" Pikachu asked.

"Yeah… that building isn't as abandoned as those scientists wanted people to think."

"Exactly. Which means we might actually find a lot… if we can find a way inside." Pikachu mused. "Huh… but, how to do that?"

"Zammm…"

Tim and Pikachu both actually leapt into the air in shock, spinning around. Tim thought his heart might stop, until he had turned to find an Alakazam behind them.

Even then, his heart beat much faster than normal, as he assumed they had just been caught. Pikachu, too, looked as though he was trying not to panic.

"Alakazam… a… kazam!"

"I… uh… wha- oh!" Pikachu stuttered, his voice a much higher pitch then usual as he tried to regain his composure, picking himself up from where he'd fallen after his jump in surprise. Since Tim himself was regaining his balance, he resolved not to bother Pikachu about it.

"Oh, ok." Pikachu's voice was returning to normal. He cleared it, bringing it down one final octave to its normal pitch, before he glanced at Tim and said, "Tim, this is the Alakazam from Fine Park."

"Oh, you're that Alakazam? It's… good to see you again." Tim said, the relief he felt creeping into his voice. He wasn't sure why they kept running into people and Pokemon they had met a month ago- Alakazam made three in the last few days that had turned up seemingly out of nowhere- but as long as they weren't about to get in trouble, Tim wasn't going to complain about it.

"Ala."

"What? No, no, that was just… I mean… well…" Pikachu sighed. "All right, yeah. You scared us. But that's all right, I know you didn't mean to. We just… well, we're trying to stay hidden from people who don't want us looking in there, and thought we might have been caught. But enough about that, what brings you here? Don't you watch over Fine Park?"

"Kazam."

"Really? Oh, that's… really great! Hey, Tim, after it was made public that R caused the incident at Fine Park, Charizard was released from where it was being confined and returned to the park! It's back with all of its friends, and watching over the park again."

"It is? That's amazing… I'm really glad it went back." Tim smiled. He had been told, of course, of Charizard's release, but until now he'd only been able to hope it returned to the ones who still waited for it.

"Kazam. Ala.. zam. Alakazam."

"Oh, really? I… didn't know that."

"Kazam. Alakazam."

"That's what brought you here, you say?"

"Zam. Ala, alakazam. Kazam, Ala."

"Huh… alright then. Just a moment. Hey, Tim, Alakazam says it came here today because it had a psychic vision."

"A vision?"

"Yeah, it says all psychic types sometimes have visions of future events. The more powerful they are, the more they see. I get the feeling they can't just see what they want, but Alakazam says that he was drawn here after he saw a couple of visions with us in them."

After a moment of quiet thought, Tim murmured, "Seems like a lot of Pokemon are being drawn to things around me lately."

"Now that you mention it, you're right. Absol, Alakazam… it does seem like there's something else behind all of this, too. After all, you can't be that special." Pikachu jibed.

Tim didn't mind the remark. Pikachu was right, after all; he wasn't anyone special. Something else must be going on. "And if something else is going on… that means we're probably in the right place." Tim said, looking at the not-so-abandoned laboratory.

"Yeah, you got that right. So that leaves, how to get in there."

"Kazam."

"What? You can help? Really!" Pikachu looked at Alakazam with a grin.

"Zam."

"Oh… alright. Tim, Alakazam can get us inside, but he wants to tell us something first that he thinks is important."

"What is it?" Tim asked, looking directly at Alakazam. The Pokemon, he knew, was one that would understand him.

Alakazam spoke for a moment; Tim waited patiently until Pikachu was able to translate.

"Okay, Tim… he, uh… didn't really make any sense, but he wanted me to tell you this, and in this wording exactly:

"When the time comes and you have nowhere to go, come to Fine Park. We can hide you from the one who controls everything.""

Tim blinked. "Huh? What does that mean?"

"Zam."

"Uh… he says you'll know when the time comes."

"Oh." Tim struggled to rein in his frustration; he was tired of questions, he wanted answers! Why did things like this keep happening to him? And, as grateful as he was for the help, this was twice now that exactly the help they needed had shown up exactly when they needed it; first Gengar, and now Alakazam. Tim was beginning to feel like things had been almost… orchestrated. Yet, he did also feel like neither Gengar nor Alakazam knew any more on what was going on than they had told. "Thanks."

There was silence for a moment as both Tim and Pikachu wrestled with their words so that the next thing either of them said wouldn't sound irritating or be a demand for Alakazam to explain. Both of them felt sure, somehow, that Alakazam would not be saying any more on the topic, even if it frustrated them both to no end. Something else was going on…

And, amongst the frustration, Tim felt a tiny spark of something else; fear. What exactly did he mean, when Tim had nowhere to go? And why would they have to hide him? And, even as Alakazam wouldn't be willing or perhaps able to say any more… even if he was, would he have the answers, or just cause more questions? Tim was getting so tired of answers that were just more questions… But he was pretty sure that right now, questioning Alakazam further would only cause just that, and waste time. Perhaps the best thing to do right now, then, was accept that particular situation the way it was, and accept Alakazam's help rather than risk making it decide not to assist them after all. They could track it down at Fine Park and try questioning it again later, when they had more time.

"Ok, about getting us in there?" Pikachu managed at last, having come to the same decision Tim had.

"Kazam."

"Okay. Tim, there's a storage in there, apparently, that some Rattata told Alakazam here that the humans never go in. it's empty, so the Rattata just use it to live in there. He's going to teleport us into that room, and he'll wait in there as well for when we need to come back out. He says that since you and I helped those at Fine Park so much, he's happy to give us some help here."

Tim managed to push everything out of his head except the task at hand.

"Oh… alright, thank you very much!"

The storage room was as empty as they had been told. A couple of rusting shelves and empty boxes were there, as well as a great deal of dust, and several Rattata as mentioned, most of which scattered when they appeared inside.

Pikachu and Tim both staggered a little when they arrived, neither of them having traveled by a Teleport before. Once they had caught their balance and checked around to make sure they were, in fact, alone (aside from Alakazam and the Rattata), they looked at each other.

"Alright, we're in. Now we need to take a look around and find something that might help us, then get out, without being seen. And we don't even know what to look for…"

"Correction." Pikachu muttered. "We don't have anything specific to look for. But since they're still doing work here while making everyone think the place is abandoned, then chances are they're up to no good here. All we have to do is find out what that is, and bring back proof of it. And there is one thing that bothers me."

"What?"

"The legendary Pokemon they had captured and were holding here. We went through the reports from the incident; no mention of them, so the public didn't know. And after what they went through to get them, I doubt they'd have just let them go. Now, I don't know if the people here now are the same group from back then, but I'm hoping to find some indication of what was done with those legendaries after the incident."

"Right… if they're still being held captive, they need to be rescued! But first, to find anything, we'll need to leave this room."

"Right. So, let's ask a local. Hey, Rattata!" Pikachu ambled over to one of the braver Rattata, who had backed away at their appearance but not hid.

"Hey, sorry to startle you and everything, but the people in this building are trying to hide something from us that we need, and we have to find it. Would you happen to know the best way out of this room without being seen- and maybe a good way around the building, too? If they know we're here, well, they'll be very upset."

"Rat? Rattata, ratta. Tat, ratta. Rattata."

"Oh? Got it! Thanks, you're the best!" Pikachu turned to Tim. "Hey, Tim, this guy says that they use the air vents to get around here all the time. No one in the building looks at them as long as they're quiet. And there's one just over there." He pointed.

Tim looked and saw the opening to one of the vents. There was a grate on it, but the Rattata had chewed through several bars, and while it was off the floor, a couple boxes and a rusty shelf made it easy to get up there, at least for something small and light. Tim winced.

"Pikachu… Air vents are made to hold air, not people. Crawling around inside them can only be done in the movies. Even if they're big enough for a person, which they usually aren't, they aren't strong enough to hold someone. I'm surprised the Rattata can use them."

"Not necessarily. There are some places that are designed for air vents to have people inside them for cleaning- restaurants, for example, sometimes need to have things so that the air vents can have someone go inside and clean them out."

"This isn't a restaurant, Pikachu."

"I know that!" Pikachu scoffed. "But they might have had to arrange this place to be able to have them cleaned, anyway. After all, if they get up to all kinds of shifty stuff here, then the vents would need to be cleaned out of any chemicals they have building up in them once in a while, otherwise different chemical residues mixing in them could cause dangerous reactions for the people in the building."

Tin thought for a moment, then nodded. "Alright, I can see the point there… but wouldn't that make it an even worse idea for us to go crawling around in there? If we don't know what's been building up?"

"Do you have another idea?"

Tim stared at Pikachu for a moment, then looked back at the vent, and sighed.

"Do you think that grate will come off? If the vent behind it is large enough, I might fit inside if the grate comes off, but I won't be able to get through the hole. And the stacked boxes look empty; they might support you, but they won't me." Tim went over to inspect it, Pikachu following. "See, this is screwed in place. Although, the screws do look rusty… maybe we can yank the grate off after all?" he mused.

"Hmm…"

Before Pikachu could voice his thought, the edges of the vent glowed purple. The screws all flew out, and the vent cover followed, floating into the air.

Tim turned, surprised, but knowing who had helped them.

"Oh, thank you Alakazam!"

"Ka…zammm…" the vent cover settled quietly on the ground, then, the area around Tim glowed purple and before he knew it, he felt the very disconcerting feeling of being lifted into the air without any support.

"Woah!"

"Oh, nice! That's perfect, Alakazam! We really owe you one!" Pikachu, who had also been lifted, was sent into the vent first. Then, Tim was brought close to it.

It was not an easy or comfortable maneuver. The hole was only just barely big enough for Tim, though as he put his arms, then head and shoulders inside he was relieved to find that the vent was a little bigger than the hole- just a little. Despite Alakazam's help, he grunted as he pulled himself fully inside, and was forced to turn as well; the hole into the room was in the side of the vent. He pulled himself towards Pikachu.

"Careful, Tim, quiet now." Pikachu warned. "The inside of air vents can really cause noise to travel. We don't want to be crawling around and be overheard, so move as quietly as you can."

"Right." Tim grunted.

At last, he was in. Breathing heavily, he could understand why some people were claustrophobic; this was even worse than the shipping container he and Pikachu had once hid in. He was mostly going to have to pull himself forward with his arms; there was no room to bend his knees, and there was very little space between the walls of the vent and his shoulders. It was also filthy, full of dust and who knew what else might have been building up as Pikachu had pointed out. The only good thing Tim could think of was that the tight space reminded him not to take too big a breath and strain his partially-healed ribs.

"Come on, Tim. We need to get moving, see if we can find some rooms we can search."

"More like, rooms that you can search. If I leave this vent, I don't know if I'll be able to get back into it without help, so it would probably be better if I stayed in here and just…" realizing something, Tim groaned and rested his head against the floor of the vent. "took the notes. Except, my notebook is in my back pocket, and there's no way I'll be able to reach it."

Pikachu sighed. "Great. I should have thought of that. Ok, Tim, this is what we'll do: first place we come to that has a fork, I'll duck into one, you go down the other and stop when your waist is at the fork. I should be able to get your notebook and pen out of your pocket for you. And yeah, I'll search the rooms, you can stay in the vent, because you're right; if someone starts coming in, it'll take you too long to get out of sight.

"So, with that settled, we need to take a good look around. Draw up a layout of their laboratory. Figure out, if we can, what they're doing in which rooms. Hopefully, since they can only use the basement without drawing suspicion, it won't be too big. We'll see what we can find and see if we can get any evidence to go with it. Then, we get out, and if we have something, we take it to Baker and Holiday. But, I will say this, Tim…"

Pikachu hesitated a moment, then continued in a softer tone. "I don't think, at this point, that we'll find anything related to Mewtwo or Harry. The people still working here have probably either one, erased any trace of that research in case of this exact event or two, if these people are different people, they replaced it with their own research. It's possible that it could still be in progress if they're trying to still research the legendaries, but I don't think they'd do that here- they would need better equipment, and they couldn't easily bring that here."

Tim had realized the same thing himself, but his heart still sank to hear Pikachu say it. He brushed it off as best he could, though he knew that if he didn't manage to find something that proved them both wrong, the hope he'd had lately of finding his father at last was going to dwindle to almost nothing as soon as he had a chance to dwell on it.

So best to try to keep from doing so.

"Right… it's probably new experiments being carried out with old equipment. It would be more frustrating that way, but they could keep them completely under the radar here." Something occurred to Tim, and his eyes widened. "Hey… you don't think this could have anything to do with that false R stone on Feraligatr, do you?"

Pikachu's eyes widened as well. "You know… I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the case. The original R was being made underground because the temperature was more stable, right? So if they were trying to create R here without Mewtwo's cells, that would make perfect sense. And if that is the case, then we need to get proof of it and get it to Holiday, so he can put a stop to this. But first, we need to determine if that really is what they're doing, because it might not be that at all."

"Right. Let's go."

After Pikachu got Tim's notebook-and his fathers' locket, which Tim hadn't even thought of- out of his pocket, the progress they made was slow. Tim's arms began to ache with the effort of crawling through the vent. They weren't able to see much; the only openings in the vent they had come across so far were in the hall, and though Tim did his best to draw the layout, he had no idea where they were in the building from there. No one passed the vents while they lingered there, either.

Once Pikachu managed to get back in front of Tim, he led the way through the vents. He had a much easier time going forward, and would crawl ahead to watch through the next vent for anyone that might come by while Tim caught up.

They passed three vents that looked into empty, dim hallways and made two turns in the vent before Pikachu waved frantically at Tim from where he peered through the vent ahead. Tim redoubled his efforts to join him and see what Pikachu had found.

They had found a room at last, where two people in lab coats were at computers, reading screens that Tim couldn't see from his position. A third person in a lab coat had his back to them and was reading some documents.

Tim quickly drew in the room on the pages he was using in his notebook, marking the computers. He didn't see any other equipment in the room, but there were some filing cabinets with locks on them. He added a note that perhaps they used this room to store research files.

They waited to see if they would say anything; just when Tim was going to whisper to Pikachu that perhaps they should move on, the scientist reading the document looked up and looked in their direction. Tim's heart sped up and he held his breath, terrified for a moment that the man knew he was there somehow. Then, the man looked away towards the other two in the room.

"Where is Henry? He should be back by now. We need to make sure that package was sent off, today."

"Maybe there was a line at the post office. He can ask them to use an express delivery, but if he rushes himself in getting it in there, it will look suspicious." The woman at the desk answered. The man next to her glanced over briefly, but said nothing.

The first man sighed, but went back to reading his papers.

Pikachu hissed at Tim then,

"I don't think we'll get much more from here until this "Henry" comes back. Let's go."

Tim nodded at him, and they set off again, though Tim paused just for a couple more moments to use his father's locket-camera to take a couple pictures of the room and the people in it.

They ended up finding a couple more rooms that were empty of anything they could make use of, although Pikachu did try looking around- these vents, apparently, were not screwed in. Tim didn't have the slightest clue why they would bolt the vent in the one storage room to the wall, and not others, but didn't spend much time puzzling over it- he would just take whatever good luck he could get.

"No idea what that equipment is for." Pikachu muttered as he climbed back into the vent after the latest excursion.

"I don't think we'll learn much at all about what they're doing here from the equipment itself; we need to find more people that might talk, or get our hands on their notes or something." Tim whispered.

"You're probably right there."

They continued their search. Tim was able to get a decent-looking, if still incomplete, map scribbled on his notebook by the time Pikachu froze.

"Wait. Listen!"

Tim held his breath, trying to hear what Pikachu could. At first, he couldn't hear anything; then faint voices reached him, and grew stronger. It was a few moments before he could make out what they were saying.

"-could you let this happen? Do you know what this is going to cause? This was the most important task we've had in years, and you let a newbie bungle it?"

"I didn't think such a simple task would go awry, but he misunderstood-"

"Misunderstood? What do you mean, misunderstood? How did you get this wrong? How could you idiots fit that Pokemon with a defect? We were only able to make two that function properly before our source for Mewtwo's cells dried up, and we needed to use the proper ones, that work, for these tasks!"

"I did mail out one of the properly functioning R stones to our second-in-command for them to start the next part of it, it was just the one that we were supposed to-"

"You idiot! That makes it even worse! Listen, you fool, making sure that the right band was sent to the second location is going to mean nothing if we have the wrong band for phase one! That Pokemon has already been sent out to Rhyme City and we have been told not to try to contact those running it today in case anything about the plan gets leaked somehow- H is really worried about that, since that meddling boy has stopped his plans before and we haven't managed to get rid of him yet."

Pikachu hissed, but Tim didn't need that to recognize the "H" they were talking about or know they were talking about him.

"Our only hope is to contact him before it starts, despite his having told us not to do so. This is an emergency now, and we can't afford to have things go south because you imbeciles fit one of the defected R stones to that Pokemon, it will be the end for us. All of us. You understand me?"

"Y-yes sir."

"Send someone to contact H, now. They'll have to meet with him to warn him, he'll have his phone turned off by now. There'll be too many people around, he won't use it for all the noise. We have to cancel our part of the plan now, call the Pokemon back to fit the other, proper band on its head, and think of something else. And you're getting the blame for this, by the way. H had planned this for months. There will be a huge crowd with very important people and more coverage then you can imagine… he wanted the incident for exactly this event. But we'll have to cancel. If the band that Pokemon has is a dud, it will be far too dangerous. H wanted a huge scene to make sure no one would ever forget it and make sure he got the worlds' attention, but he didn't want a massacre. Far too messy, not good for the city's image, and he won't be able to control the event like planned. We need to let him know he has to stop it before everyone at the event is killed."

Tim swallowed. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

Pikachu looked at him. "Tim! We have to figure out exactly what is going on, get proof, and get out of here- now!"

Tim nodded.

A/N: Normally, crawling through air vents is just a movie thing. Not only are air vents normally far too small for humans to fit, but they're designed to hold air, not people. Crawling through would would normally just cause you to noisily crash right through the vent. There are, however, places that are designed for people to be able to go inside to clean them, and Tim and Pikachu got very lucky.

Almost too lucky, with Alakazam showing up. What in the world is going on... and what the heck was with the weird advice/warning that Alakazam gave Tim? "When you have nowhere to go"? "The one who controls everything"? So cryptic. We might not find out about that one for some time, though, because it sounds like there's a bigger problem on their hands.