Pokemon (Detective Pikachu)

A Legendary Search

19. Old Records

Tim was woken from his short sleep by the doctors and their partners who checked on patients before visiting hours began. When they finished at last and finally discharged him, he immediately took the clothes Amanda had brought from his apartment into the attached bathroom to change.

He grimaced when he put the sweater on. His third and final sweater, it was dark blue, and it was not a hoodie. Sighing, he figured he'd better buy himself a couple of new ones, so he could wear ones he liked better. Plus, he seemed to be going through a lot of them lately.

Leaving the bathroom, he was as startled to see Emilia as she seemed to be by him emerging, though her surprise only lasted a moment. Pikachu was there as well, waiting for him. It was Emilia, however, who spoke.

"Oh, there you are! You are ok to leave, then?"

Tim smiled at her. "Yeah, they said I'm good to go as long as I'm careful."

"That's wonderful." Emilia hesitated, seeming almost unsure, then offered, "There's still a little time before I have to be at work. I could take you somewhere before going, if you'd like- your apartment, maybe?"

It was Tim's turn to hesitate. "Uh… well…"

She seemed to sense what he was hesitating for. "Or if there's somewhere else you'd like to go, I can drop you off there. I really don't mind."

"Well… if you're sure, I was planning to go to the library to look something up… unless…" a thought struck Tim. "How far back does GNN keep records?"

"Um, we keep certain records back a pretty long time. Why?"

"I was thinking… there's something I need to check on, and it's just before the original PCL was destroyed by, well, a failed experiment. That was about twelve years ago, I think, maybe more. So I wasn't sure if you'd have anything on it or not."

"PCL was destroyed once? I didn't know that, actually… but we probably have records from around that time somewhere. GNN has been around a while, even if it wasn't doing so well at one point. And GNN keeps almost everything for at least some time- you never really know when something will come up again, after all. Small things are discarded after a few years, but if what you're trying to look into was something big, it would probably still be around. Especially if it was about some kind of unsolved incident… does that help you at all?" Emilia asked.

"Um… maybe. It was something that I think someone tried to cover up and hide, but it was a pretty big incident that wasn't exactly solved."

"Then we probably have it. But the only one who might know for sure where we might keep it would be Mr. Graham. I can definitely give him a call and see if he could help you- after what happened on Monday, I'm pretty sure he would." Emilia smiled at Tim.

Tim smiled back at her. "If you could, that would really help me. Thank you."

"Definitely! Um, if you want to come with me, then, I'll call him once we're outside."

"Sure. Thanks again."

"You're on to something, Tim?" Pikachu asked, finally speaking for the first time that day.

Tim looked at him, then very subtly gestured at Emilia. Pikachu got the message; they would discuss it later, when Tim could speak to him without looking strange to her.

They left the hospital together; after walking out the doors, they took several paces away from the building, just to be sure the cell phone signals wouldn't interfere with any equipment, before Emilia took it out to dial the president of GNN.

While she dialed, both of them were startled by a large white shape that seemed to suddenly fall out of the sky to land neatly in front of them. Absol, it seemed, had indeed been waiting for Tim.

Getting over her surprise, Emilia took a few steps away for her phone call. Pikachu stepped up to Absol.

"Well, hello there. It's good to see you again. You know, we can't thank you enough for all the help you've given us."

"Sol."

"Well, we thank you anyway. It might have gotten really nasty without you. So, anyway, it looks like you've been waiting here? Is there something you need?"

"Ab… sol."

"What do you mean, not exactly? Is there a specific reason you're here?"

"Absol. Ab sol."

"Hmm…"

"What did he say, Pikachu?"

Pikachu turned to Tim. "He says he felt drawn here. All Absol can sense natural disasters with their horn, but as far as he can tell, he's the only one that's felt drawn to disasters, any disasters."

"Absol. Sol."

"He said he's always felt compelled to do something. Other Absol, they take action if they want, but he's felt like he has to. And something has always pulled him in this direction."

"Sol. Absol, sol sol. Absol."

Pikachu's eyes widened. "Oh, really? And apparently, Tim, he had a dream once when he was young where he spoke to a legendary Pokemon. He can't tell me its name, but it told him that he needed to seek out a partner if he was going to avert disasters that could swallow the world."

"Absol."

"He said it was after that that he started sensing all types of disasters, not just natural ones, and started feeling compelled to stop them."

"Wow." Tim murmured, keeping his voice too low for Emilia to hear. "That's… amazing."

Absol gave a growling rumble.

"Oh, and he added just now that that's when he started understanding all human speech. That is pretty impressive. Although…" Pikachu turned to look at Absol again. "That doesn't actually explain why you've been waiting here?"

"Sol, absol. Absol, sol."

"Oh…" Pikachu looked back at Tim. "He said… something else is going to happen, and soon. He's waiting here because… he feels like there's something about you that has to do with it, Tim. He can't explain it. But he thinks what you're doing is supposed to help stop it."

"Me?" Tim blinked in disbelief. "Stop a disaster? I mean, I guess you and I managed to stop R before, Pikachu, but… I'm not so sure about that."

"Well, maybe it's not necessarily that you or, more likely, we, will stop it ourselves. It might be that we uncover information to help others stop it, don't you think? Which must mean our investigation is on the right track!" Pikachu suggested.

"Oh… well, that might be right. I hope so. But… I still think you must have something wrong, Absol. I don't think there's anything about me that you should feel drawn to."

"Absol."

"He's not sure what it is either. Might be you, or what you're doing, or something else entirely. He has a theory… but nothing more than that. And he's not going to tell us." Pikachu's last statement sounded a little grumpy.

"Absol."

"He wanted to wait and see you to see if he could figure it out. Now that he has seen you, he's going to do some looking around. He's determined to find out exactly what it is that he's sensing around here."

"Alright… well, thank you, Absol. I hope you find what you're looking for." Tim told him.

"Absol." Powerful muscles bunched under Absol's large frame- Meiko was right, now that Tim was looking properly at him, he really was a big Absol, standing a little taller than Tim himself- and he took off. Within moments, he was out of sight.

"Wow, look at him go." Pikachu commented. "He's definitely not your average Absol. No way can normal ones pull that off. And by the way, he said he hopes so too, and he hopes the same for us."

"Tim!" Emilia called, and Tim looked at her. She was hanging up and putting her phone away. "Mr. Graham said he'd be delighted to see if we can find the records you need. We can both head there right now."

After they had parked and headed around to the front of the building, Tim was stunned. They had, of course, been setting up for the debate between all the candidates running for Mayor; he had expected that. What he had not expected was the size of them. In particular, the size of the stage they would be debating on.

"Woah… what…"

"I know… it looks a little over the top, doesn't it?" Emilia said. She looked almost embarrassed.

"Over the top? You could fit a Wailord inside of that thing! What do they need it that big for?" Pikachu asked staring.

"Why is it that big?" Tim asked. He was curious himself.

"Well, Mayor Helding actually brought it in. He himself was stunned at the size; he said he'd owed a relative a favour, so he had a company in Stanza City that his nephew works at do the building. Rumor has it there were several people annoyed that he had it built in Stanza City, of all places, and not here, but his relative pushed him into it. He said he wanted it big, because he wanted everyone on it visible for a large crowd and because this election is going to be a big deal- I think he has some things he wants to put through office that he's worried anyone else elected won't- but he said it didn't even make sense that it would be made that big." Emilia said. "It's… really drawing attention."

It was true; cars on the street were slowing down as they passed, Tim noticed.

"What do you mean, he didn't think it would be that big? If you want something like that, you have to give the company specifics. How tall, how wide, how long. They wouldn't make it with just the instructions, "make it big." This… is just ridiculous. You could fit an amusement park ride in there." Pikachu commented.

He was exaggerating a little, but in essence he was right. Tim could understand a stage to hold the debate. But this? The level of the stage was at least a full story high- Tim would guess somewhere around ten feet tall, maybe a little more. Tim couldn't understand anyone in their right mind wanting it that high.

"How is this supposed to work if the debate is that high over the crowd?" Tim pointed out. "There's high enough to be seen over a crowd, and then there's too high. That's… insane. They'll need an elevator to get up there."

Emilia giggled. "Well… I think they're going to get flying Pokemon to help. But yes. Mayor Helding said he was going to make a phone call because they must have really mixed something up, to have made a stage like this. I know he wanted it big enough for all the candidates and their Pokemon, and I've seen a couple of those Pokemon. They do have a few big ones. One has an Onix, I think, and another a Golurk- they will need a lot of space. But… I think they definitely mixed up with the height. I've heard a bunch of people muttering that that's what he gets for ordering it from Stanza City. There's no reason for it to be that tall."

"Unless they want to attract attention." Pikachu said. "This is going to be the most ridiculous debate ever. I mean, really."

Tim shook his head. "Well, I guess it really will be a memorable event, at least."

Emilia giggled again. "I guess it will. But it seems really strange to have something like this out front."

Mr. Graham met them both in the lobby. He seemed more excited than he ever had to see Tim. He went on about the interview they had aired with Tim- higher ratings than the average of their most popular shows. It seemed to settle one thing for Ethan Graham- someday soon, he and his best team were going to sit down with Tim and go over everything more thoroughly than they ever had before, so they could make a show about it.

The idea did not excite Tim. Never mind the fact that he didn't like the attention to begin with, he hated each time he had to go through it while figuring out how to make it seem like his information came from other sources when it had in fact come from Pokemon. It was difficult to change the subject, though.

When at last Mr. Graham paused for a breath, Tim quickly put in, "Sorry, Mr. Graham… but since I'm not sure how long it might take to find what I'd like to look for…"

The man seemed to be brought back to the present out of his daydreams on what a show mirroring Tim's story might bring them in ratings. "Oh! Yes, of course. At this point, Tim, whenever you need anything, come here. The whole building's heard all about you by now. We'll always be happy to get you what you need. What were you hoping to find today?"

Tim smiled. "Well, there's an incident I'd like to look into that happened a little over fourteen years ago, I think. I was hoping you might still have records of that incident; Emilia told me that you keep records from unsolved incidents for a long time?"

"Ah, yes, we do. You can never tell when an old unsolved incident will suddenly come up again in a story, or be solved, so we keep all the information we get on it. We can show you where we keep the records and even see if we can help you narrow down the search. Do you know the date this incident occurred on?"

Tim supplied the date; he'd memorized it from the old notebook on his way over.

"Perfect. We can take a look right at that section, then; they're organized by month and year. Come this way; we have a room we keep the records in up on the twenty-eighth floor, just past my office actually."

Tim followed Mr. Graham and Emilia. The elevator ride was passed in mostly amiable silence, though Mr. Graham commented near the top,

"By the way, I found that Skarmory feather you were talking about in front of the building. I see how it caused so much damage to your leg; sharpest thing I've ever picked up off the ground."

"Oh, yeah, sorry… it must have been difficult to get rid of, being that dangerous..."

"Get rid of it? Oh, no. That feather is a keepsake, now. I cleaned it off and put it in a case in my office. It'll stay in GNN as a reminder of what you did for us all that day."

The comment made Tim uncomfortable again, but thankfully, he only had a couple seconds of awkward-feeling silence trying to think of something to say before the elevator reached the floor they wanted.

The three of them walked straight down the hall until they reached the room that Mr. Graham had been talking about; the man opened it, and they went inside.

The room was filled with shelves that held boxes- hundreds of shelves. The room was massive. A lot of the shelves and boxes were dusty, though not nearly as bad as the warehouse Tim had been in just a couple days ago.

"Let's see… I'm not sure exactly where what you're looking for will be, but each area should be clearly labeled with the year and month." Mr. Graham mused.

"The year you're looking for should be over here…" Emilia started walking to the right side of the room. "Once we're in the section for the right year, the boxes will be labeled for what month it was from, but after that, I'm afraid there's no more organization. It could be anywhere in any of the boxes for the month you gave us. That's why it took Meiko so long to find that video of the Fine Park accident."

"Really? You'd think you'd stay better organized than that. You could at least keep putting things in one box until it's full, then label that box with the date range." Pikachu commented. Tim was glad the other two in the room couldn't understand him, but he also had to admit that he agreed.

"Oh, here." Emilia said, reaching the correct year. Even just the shelves for one year were full of boxes- multiple ones for each month. He knew TV stations covered a lot of news, but he had never really thought about exactly how much research and how many things they would have stored away for it.

"Perfect, thank you very much."

"Not a problem at all, Tim. Like I said, whenever you need information on something, come straight here. Anytime. I'll even have a special pass made for you, so you won't have to call anyone down to let you in. It would be a pleasure to work with you any time."

"Don't pass up this offer. Access to this much information with just about no strings attached- unless you consider all of GNN's interviews strings- is something a detective would just about die for." Pikachu piped up. "Take it. This is invaluable."

"That's… really nice of you. I could never thank you enough." Tim said. Mr. Graham shook his head; Emilia gave a soft huff of laughter.

"No, Tim, it's us who couldn't thank you enough for what you've done. Trust me, you've done far more for us so far, and on top of that, it seems likely right now that any help we can give you is going to probably come back around here somehow. Whenever you're involved in a case we're reporting on, our ratings go up, and I think that's only going to keep increasing after this latest incident right here inside GNN. I'll order that card. It'll take a couple days to get here, but we'll get it to you. But, on that note… I'm sorry that we're going to leave you here with all these boxes, but I'm afraid both of us need to get to work. I wish what you needed was better organized for you, but… well, maybe I'll see if that can be worked on sometime. I hope you find what you're looking for.

"Oh! And…" Mr. Graham hesitated for a moment, his cheerful demeanor vanishing suddenly. "I… I heard that the police aren't actively looking for your father anymore, and… I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry to hear that."

"Huh? They stopped?" Emilia's eyes were wide in surprise, but full of sympathy.

Tim swallowed. "Yeah… they've declared him dead and aren't looking anymore."

"Oh… I'm so sorry, Tim."

He couldn't look at her. He didn't want to see the concern and pity he knew she was looking at him with.

He cleared his throat roughly. "Doesn't matter. I'll find him myself. That's why I'm here."

"You think this incident you're looking into might have something to do with it, even from that long ago?" Graham sounded surprised.

"I'm not sure. But, that's why I'm looking at it. The clues I've been looking at so far have led me to it."

"Well, then, I'm sure you'll find him soon, and what fools the police department will look when you do." Graham's voice was confident.

"Yeah." Tim answered, though in all honesty, he didn't care what the police department would think or look like.

"I had no idea… if… if you ever need to talk about it, Tim, you know I don't mind. It's okay to be upset about it." Emilia offered softly.

Tim shook his head and finally looked back at her. The emotion in her eyes was genuine.

"I'm alright. I know he's out there, and I will find him."

"That's the spirit! We'll leave you to it, then, and let you get searching." Graham said. He gave Emilia a glance that said pretty clearly that it was time to start work. She hesitated a moment, and glanced at Tim. Something in Tim's glance seemed to reassure her, and she nodded.

"Good luck, Tim." Emilia smiled.

"Thank you. I'll see you later." Tim nodded at Mr. Graham, and smiled back at Emilia. The two of them left to get to their respective areas of the building to start work, and Tim looked at the boxes.

"So, about what you found in those notes." Pikachu began.

"Yeah, I'll tell you. Just hold on a moment; I want to find the files we need as soon as possible." Tim began pulling boxes labeled with the correct month off the shelves and placing them on the floor. "Help me go through these, looking for that date, and I'll tell you about it while we search."

Once all the boxes for that month were down, Tim and Pikachu each picked one, and began.

Both human and Pokemon poured through the files as quickly as they could after an initial slow start while Tim caught Pikachu up. The one thing that was on their side that while the boxes themselves had no labels other than the month, nearly everything was in folders, many of which did have at least some sort of identification, though it was usually the incident the reports inside were related to.

Still, that gave them some help; they were able to immediately put aside several that clearly had nothing to do with the case they were looking into. Each one that Tim had to close, though, after having gone through it and finding nothing, made him feel a little more desperate. He didn't even know if looking into the destroyed research facility would get him anything, but he needed to feel like he was doing something. Something other than sit and go through old records. This roller coaster between hope and feeling hopeless had to stop. Each time he spoke to his mother, she asked if there had been any news, and gave a despaired sob when he told her there hadn't been. And he himself felt sick with worry over having part of his family torn away- where was his father?

An hour into searching, Tim had rapidly gone through his third box and was opening the fourth to grab the first file in it when Pikachu said, "Tim! Tim, I think I've got it here!"

Tim dropped the box immediately and rushed over. Taking a look at what Pikachu had found, both of them flipped through the pages as quickly as they could.

There wasn't actually much on the incident, which made sense if someone was trying to hide as much as possible to sweep the incident under the rug. It was written off as a failed experiment, though that clearly didn't satisfy the person or persons investigating it. Tim already knew more than they did about what happened, but there was one thing he was happy to see they knew that he currently didn't- the location all the Pokemon had gathered. The lab that had been destroyed.

"There it is." He said with satisfaction. Having stuck the map he'd used to get to the warehouse he'd been at before the accident in his notebook, which was all still with him, he reached for his back pocket.

"Mark it down, Tim, and off we go!" Pikachu said with a grin.

Tim pulled out his notebook and opened it. The map, stuck at the back, was a reminder to him that the notebook was nearly filled- only the last page was blank. "Ah- I'll have to get another one before we go." He muttered crossly. More time that they would waste. Pikachu sighed.

Tim marked down the area he needed on his map, then shoved everything back into his pocket. While he did, Pikachu began hurriedly stuffing things back into the box. Tim let him do that while he lifted the other boxes back into the proper area on the shelf, then helped him put the last few things into it before putting that box away too. About to leave, Pikachu stopped him.

"Wait- we should leave a note or speak to someone in case Emilia or Mr. Graham comes looking for us."

He had a good point. With the last page still empty, Tim tore it out of the notebook and scribbled a note.

I found what I needed, so I'm going to scene to investigate the area. Sorry for rushing off without coming to let you know myself. Thanks so much, and I will come back here later for the debate.

"There… if we don't see one of them on the way out, we'll give this to someone and ask if they'll deliver it." Tim said. Pikachu nodded.

They did not see either Emilia or Mr. Graham on the way down. They did, however, run into Carina and Kricketune on the first floor, just before they entered the lobby.

"Oh, Tim, is that you?" Carina saw him first.

"Oh, look! We sure got lucky today!" Pikachu said gleefully as Tim turned.

"Oh! Carina. I haven't seen you since…"

"Yeah, since that incident with my violin. I've come here a couple times since then, since they wanted to make me a regular on Maximum Music. I was hoping I would run into you sometime… I wanted to thank you for all your help. After the police were finished with my violin for their evidence, I got it back, and I've… well, it's been hard to let it out of my sight ever since, I'll admit…"

Tim smiled. "I don't blame you. But I'm glad you got it back."

"Yeah, I'm glad we were able to get it back to you, too. That case was a tough one, but more than worth it to help out such a lovely lady." Pikachu boasted. Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes- why would Pikachu even bother speaking to her like that when he knew she couldn't understand him, anyway?

"Kriiiiket…" Kricketune supplied.

Carina smiled. "Are you going to be around today?"

"Uh, no. Mr. Graham was kind enough to let me look up something in their records, but now that I've found what I was looking for, I have to go. I will be here for the debate, though. Will you be here then?" Tim asked her.

"Oh, no. I'm used to performances in front of crowds, but I'm not actually very good with being in them. I'll be going before it starts."

"Oh, that's too bad. But then, I can understand why you wouldn't want to be in the middle of crowds- as beautiful and skilled as you are, you must get swarmed." Pikachu told her.

"I see. That's too bad. But it was nice to see you again." Something occurred to Tim, and he quickly asked, "Um, are you going to see Emilia while you're here? She's, um, one of the assistant directors…"

"Ah, yes, as far as I know she should still be helping on the show. I've seen her working on it each time I've come, anyway."

Tim pulled out his note. "In that case… I'm sorry to ask, but would you mind giving this to her for me? Just wanted to let her know I was finished in their storage room."

"Oh, of course. That won't be a problem at all. And it was nice to see you too, Tim. Hopefully I'll see you around again sometime." Carina took the note from him, smiling.

Tim smiled back at her. "Yeah. Thanks so much."

After saying their goodbyes, Tim and Pikachu headed towards the door, while Carina and Kricketune went the other way to head for the studio they would be recorded in.

A/N: Lots going on in this chapter. Tim figuring out where to go, GNN getting ready for the debate... someone mixed up the debate stage big time, but too late to fix it now. But now that Tim knows where he's going, we'll find out more about that research facility next time.