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Chapter 15
"A Dress Rehearsal for a Dress Rehearsal"
Walking around Pewter City, our objective was to find anymore Pokemon trainers that had exploding Pokemon stolen from them. It was apparent that the gym leader in this city was the target, but who knows if there were others involved. Walking inside a barbershop in the center of town, Pikachu and I caught the attention of one of the barbers who immediately took notice to us.
"Are you the kids seeking information about stolen Pokemon?" he asked, much to his customer's suprise.
"Yes," I answered, taking out my badge to show the barber. "I'm Junior Detective Tim Goodman of the Ryme City police department. We're investigating a possible robbery of explosive Pokemon from here."
"Explosive Pokemon?" wondered the customer.
"If you or anyone in town knows of any…"
"Explosive Pokemon?" remarked the barber. "What are those idiots up to now?"
Both Pik and I gave each other a confused look as to who those "idiots" were. They could have been Team Rocket or someone else entirely.
"And in case you're wondering, it's Team Rocket. Murdering bastards."
Muttering under his breath, the barber clearly showed that he held a grudge against Team Rocket. Then again, who wouldn't hold a grudge against an organization that steals Pokemon from their trainers or habitats and trains them to kill people?
"They…they smuggled an explosive Pokemon aboard a jetliner a few days ago. The Pokemon belonged to this town's gym leader, Brock."
"Aye, poor Brock," he sighed. "It just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time for that Golem of his to be stolen. Then again, Team Rocket will do anything to achieve their goal."
As he began to shave his customer, the barber had a look on his face that clearly meant he had something to hide. Something that he didn't feel comfortable sharing with others.
"Um, is everything all right sir?" I asked as Pikachu began playing around with the shaving cream. "You seem troubled."
"Well, let's look at it this way," he replied. "About 13 years ago, I had a similar predicament. It was on a Pan Am to Los Angeles via Honolulu. There was an explosion and fortunately for the pilots, they landed us safely on Honolulu."
There was no doubt in my mind that the barber was talking about that Pan Am 747 that exploded near Honolulu. It also brought back memories of the Pan Am manager in Tokyo who lost his son in Lockerbie.
"Were you a passenger on that flight?" I asked and the barber unhesitantly said that he was.
"Ever since then, I've placed a close guard on my Pokemon because Team Rocket goes one of two ways: they either sell Pokemon to the highest bidding terror group or they use the Pokemon they steal and poach for their own terrorists gain," he explained. "Now with the pope and what happened on the Philippine plane, the anxiety is creeping back up again."
"There's something else," said the customer, catching all of our attention and thinking that the customer had something to say about the investigation.
"Something you want to say, sir?"
Advancing closely, I stood in front of the man as he was given the shave.
"A few days ago," he explained. "There were these guys behaving strangely on a flight that I took from Manila to Osaka with a stopover in Cebu. On the first leg, they were behaving strangely moving from seat to seat until one of them sat over the airplane's wing. One of them stuck something underneath and then once we landed in Cebu, they got off."
"Did you mention anything to the authorities in Osaka?"
"You damn right, I did, son. I was a police officer for 25 years here in Pewter City and I know Team Rocket clowns when I see them. I can remember one of them looking like he had something up his sleeve."
I wasn't going to squander this lead by any means necessary and so, I procured for more information.
"Did you report to the flight crew about these men?" I asked.
"Yes," replied the customer. "I reported to them when I got to Osaka."
Who these men are remained to be seen, but it seemed that it was a dress rehearsal for a dress rehearsal on Philippine Airlines Flight 434.
"Thank you both," I said. "Come on, Pik."
As we left, we saw a Psyduck about to be given a haircut and the only time I deviated from the focus was because of it.
"He only has three hairs, pal," I remarked as Pikachu and I left the barber shop.
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A little while later, we reconvened at a rendezvous point in the center of Pewter City and it seemed like my dad and Lucy had their own findings.
"Okay," I said. "So, it appears that there was a test run done before the test run. It was on another Philippine Airlines flight via Cebu."
"Was it to Tokyo?" Lucy asked.
"No, it was Osaka. We'd better find these guys and question them…whoever and wherever they are."
And this just exactly what we were going to do...
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